Trauma Center
by Makio-Kuta
Summary: An AU story revolving around Doctor Stein and the rest of the cast at the prestigious Shibusen Hospital.
1. Ch1 Op 1 Breaking the Glass

Paralyzed with fear---I haven't shared fanfiction in AGES. I'll be honest. But enough people (yes, 2) have liked this and convinced me to share it.

Anyway, I know the comment says this takes place at Shibusen, but that stuff starts happening a fair bit later. Okay, a few chapters later. I hope you'll stick with me.

And to anyone who catches on, YES this is a total Trauma Center (Video Game) play on. I was at work when it hit me how much fun it would be to have Stein in that game...among other things.

I hope you enjoy!

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Trauma Center

Chapter One: Beginnings

Operation 1: Breaking the Glass

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" a worried woman repeated over and over, bowing her head slightly. Her one hand rested on the head of her small daughter and with the other she shook the hand of the man she was thanking. "It's certainly nice that you continue to work in this small town. Someone with your ability could probably be suited for something far bigger…"

The man cut her off dryly, "It was nothing really. Just be sure she takes the medication and she should be fine. Ahh…maybe you should both come back next week and we'll do a check up." He did his best to smile when he looked at the young girl.

"Anyway," he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, obviously uncomfortable with the situation, "maybe you should get Rachel home."

The woman let go of his hand, perhaps catching on? He doubted it. "Ah, I should thank your nurse too. Where is she?"

The doctor rolled his head lazily towards the exam room. "Mira? She's probably cleaning up." Maybe he should have offered to clean the exam room and left her to deal with this mother…

"What a pity," she said with a frown. "I'd love to shake her hand too. I'm very happy that you both were able to save my little Rachel." The doctor only nodded. The girl wasn't even that sick and she wasn't cured yet. All he had done was fill out a subscription for some penicillin.

"Anyway, about getting Rachel home…" he began, without any intention of finishing the sentence. He only hoped it would remind her to leave.

"Ah! That's right!! Rachel, don't you want to go home with mommy?" She turned all her attention to her daughter, who smiled back in return. "Dadddy is waiting for us."

The daughter grabbed her mom's hand. "Mommy, don't you find this doctor a little creepy."

"Rachel!" She gave her daughter a light tap on the head. She sent one nervous look back at the doctor hoping he hadn't heard. Lowering her voice, she added, "That screw in his head is a little frightening though."

Once the two had left, the doctor sighed with relief. People like that bugged him. People who felt that it was their duty to force their enthusiasm on everyone around them. He sat down at the reception desk and stared at his own sign.

Doctor Franken Stein. He hadn't been in this town long; only three years. The clinic had been in a sorry state when he had first got there. Mira Nygus was the only staff member left after the others had left for larger hospitals in larger cities. Remembering him from high school, and that he had gone away to medical school, she had asked him to help run the clinic. He had agreed to take on the position of doctor there.

Maybe that woman was right; maybe he could amount for more. But for some reason working in his own clinic felt nice, even if it was slow more often than not and even if there wasn't anything truly worth his calibre. Ah…he was back to wondering if that woman was right that he should leave. Had that been what she said?

Placing a hand on his chin, he closed his green-gold eyes and started to nod off. The sun felt nice creeping through the window and settling on his silver hair. Just as it seemed he might have been able to catch a nap, the phone rang. He reached a hand towards it, but it stopped ringing before he got there.

"Mira must have answered it," he told himself and closed his eyes again and cupped his face in his hand. Before he could even begin to drift off, the hallway door that led to the exam rooms crashed open. He snapped his hand down suddenly and looked over to see the nurse standing there.

"That was Sid," she said. "There was a terrible accident a few blocks away. A motorcycle collided with a truck. The young boy who was driving the motorcycle is hurt rather badly. They're bringing him here now!"

"A truck…this does sound bad," he gingerly pushed his glasses up as he stood from the desk. "Did he say anything about his condition?"

Nygus let out a tiny chuckle. "You know Sid, he wouldn't know the difference between a broken toe and a broken leg. All he said was, 'it's bad.' Actually he said that quite a bit." She made a more serious face. "Still, a truck and a motorcycle…I'm sure his condition isn't that good."

"Is the operation room ready?" Nygus nodded in reply. "I guess we'd better get set up then, so we'll be ready the second he gets here." It wasn't everyday that they had something bigger than a common illness. He knew it was wrong, but he felt a little excited. This was the kind of stuff he had become a doctor for.

Was it really? Or maybe he wanted something even bigger?

_'Ah, I wish that woman had never said those things.'_

The two quickly went about getting themselves ready for the operation. It wasn't too long after the call that the clinic's main door was flung open, causing the tiny bells hanging above to make quite the clamour. Nygus was the one waiting in the reception room for the two to arrive.

"Nygus!" a large man called out to her from the doorway. It was Sid Barett, a cop in the town and close friend of Nygus. He was holding a boy's body in his arms. "This is bad. Really bad. Ahh…" he looked down at the boy. "It's bad."

"Just place him on here. Don't worry, I'm sure Doctor Stein can fix him up," she said as she helped him place the boy on one of the stretchers. "Do you have to go back to the scene or are you going to wait here?" While she spoke she took a closer look at the boy. She recognized him from the town.

"I have to go back to the scene," he replied. "Those truck drivers, they never learn." His hand curled into a fist. "But I can't place blame quite yet, I suppose."

"Soul Eater Evans," Nygus muttered to herself as she dug through the filing cabinet.

Feeling a little ignored, Sid added, "Well I'll be going now," and turned to leave.

Having found the boy's file in the cabinet, the nurse pushed the stretcher into the operation room where Stein was waiting.

*****

"Soul Eater Evans, age 18. He has major cuts to his arms and legs. One leg appears to be broken."

"So…we'll be cutting him open."

"His leg."

"His Leg." Stein repeated with a nod. "There are bits of glass lodged in a few places. We'll need to open him up in those areas as well, and make sure there aren't some hidden inside."

"Just don't overdo it," Nygus said sternly.

Stein snapped his glove in place as his only reply to her comment.

"Start with the arms," his nurse instructed, handing him the forceps. "We have to stop the bleeding."

He sighed. Once he started to work, he worked with speed. The glass was quickly removed and the wounds treated. Before long, all that was left was the broken leg.

"Everything is going smoothly," Nygus said with a smile. "I told Sid you could handle this. Are we ready to open up his leg?"

He nodded and took the scalpel. "Mira…that woman that was here earlier with her little girl…"

"Rachel and her mother? What about her? Besides her uncanny ability to get under your skin." She passed him the forceps.

He took them from her. "Ah, it's really nothing," he lied. "Even this break isn't that bad. He got off rather lucky considering he messed with a truck."

"Well it's not like Sid really told us much about what happened. He has a habit of making it sound worse than it actually is."

"Something like this, even a child could do it…"

She frowned. "I wouldn't go that far."

"Mira, I've been thinking a lot about this job lately. It's really rather dull."

Ah, he had said it out loud.

"Never mind that."

Like she could.

"There, all that's left is to stitch him up."

*****

Soul sat in one of the hospital beds. He stared at the nurse in disbelieve. "Wait so…I hit a truck.? Man, that's just not cool." He pulled the sleeve on his hospital gown up to look at his arms. "Huh, not the first time I got stitches here."

"You've broken a leg too," she told him.

Stein was sitting in a chair in the room glancing at Soul's file. "That's right, Soul, last year you had that nasty cut on your chest."

"Don't remind me. I must have some sort of infatuation with getting stitches or something. Not like you though," he said to the doctor, obviously referring to the stitched pattern covering his clothes.

"A truck, huh? I really don't remember a thing. Do you think…I could have died."

"But you didn't." Nygus said quickly. "Don't forget that."

"Because you're lucky," Stein said with a sigh. "Maybe it's about time you stop driving around so recklessly. What was it that happened last time? Didn't you hit the curb wrong and fly off your bike?"

Soul laughed. "Yeah, and I sliced my gut open good on that crazy old lady's fence. Huh…I could've died then too. It's a good thing you doctors are around for idiots like me." He grinned.

Nygus turned away from the patient and rolled her eyes. It was obvious he'd end up here again.

It seemed Stein was thinking the same thing. He slapped the papers in his hands down on the desk and spun his chair around to face Soul. "Maybe it's about time you stop driving around so recklessly," he repeated himself.

"You already said that. You going senile?"

Before any tension could start to fester, Nygus quickly turned back to Soul and said, "Anyway, you should rest here for a while. We'll leave you be so maybe you can get some sleep." She grabbed the back of Stein's chair and gave it a good shove, hurling it, Stein and all, out of the room. She cringed when she heard the loud thud further down the hallway and a groan.

"Maybe it's about time HE stopped driving around so recklessly," Soul said with a laugh. "Huh, well I guess I'd better think about that resting you told me about." Soul flopped over onto his side, still laughing to himself.

Nygus rolled her eyes one more time as she walked out of the room leaving Soul to laugh to himself. She saw Stein sitting on his chair again in the reception room watching the television. "It's the report about the crash," he said very suddenly. "It seems it was just a pickup truck…I was seeing a semi for some reason. But he'd probably be dead for sure if that was the case.

"He's still lucky."

"So the truck hit him?" she asked, going to the filing cabinet behind the reception desk again to put away Soul's file.

Stein leaned back. "They said that the kid ran the red light and the truck hit him square in the side. He flung forward through his own windshield and landed on the road. At least he was wearing a helmet. I guess."

"That's a step forward for him. I'll watch the hospital tonight. You should go home." The nurse spammed the door shut. She was a little worried about Stein's comment during Soul's operation. Rather dull? She never found it dull.

Stein stood up from the chair. "Maybe that's a good idea. Well, call me if you need me." He grabbed his jacket from the closet by the main door. He hung his lab coat in its place, not that they looked particularly different. "Have a good night."

*****

The sun was beginning to set, something that was hard to tell when you were inside the clinic. The town was very quiet at this time of the day. Stein didn't live far from the clinic, so he always walked to and from work. His house was a little frightening when someone saw it for the first time, but then, one could say he was too. The house was decorated with stitches, as was he. Perhaps the house was a little less frightening than him--he did have a screw through his head.

He placed a hand on the handle to the front door. It had been a long day, even though not much had happened. He unlocked and opened the door, throwing his keys onto a small table as he entered. He lit a cigarette and dropped his jacket on a chair as he walked through the living room. He slumped down in front of his computer and typed a few words into a Bobble search and scrolled down scanning the results.

Frustrated, he closed the web page and leaned back in the chair. "Just who does that woman think she is saying that to me anyway?" He leaned back further and stared up at the ceiling, watching the smoke from his cigarette spread across it. "I haven't felt like cutting something open for a while now…"


	2. Ch1 Op2 Piercing

More things happen! There are some people that are more awesome than life to write. One of those types of characters for me, is in this chapter.

Hope you enjoy!

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Trauma Center

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Operation 2: Piercing

"Good morning, Stein."

"Good morning, Mira." Stein hung his jacket up and took out his lab coat. "Was it a quiet night?"

She nodded. She was reading a book and sitting at the reception desk. "There was an incident with Soul trying to sneak out. He apparently forgot that someone usually stays here all night. Don't worry though, nothing I couldn't handle."

"Well, that's good. I brought you breakfast." The doctor dropped a paper bag on the desk. "I wonder what will happen today."

Nygus handed Stein a patient's file. "This boy will be coming in later. Apparently he's having trouble talking."

He looked at the file. He was having trouble talking? Certainly that wasn't a bad thing.

"Black*Star…" Nygus continued. "That girl Tsubaki was the one that called this morning. She said she's really worried about him."

"It had better not be another case of strep throat." He gave the file back to the nurse. "Actually, knowing that kid, he probably just screamed until his throat was raw. The last time I heard him at the grocery store…"

The tiny sound of bells cut Stein off. "Excuse me?" A young woman stood in the doorway, no doubt the source of that timid voice. "I have an appointment here for my friend?"

"Ah, you're Tsubaki, right? Where's the other one?"

"Black*Star? He's…here with me actually. He was a little reluctant to come. He keeps trying to tell me that it's nothing but, like I told you on the phone this morning, he started to cough up blood."

She pulled a boy out from behind her and gave him a tiny push forward. He wore a defeated look on his face. There was no doubt in neither Stein nor Nygus' mind that Black*Star did not want to be there. He wouldn't even look them in the face.

"Listen," he said in a raspy voice. "I don't need your help. I can get through this on my own!"

"Black*Star! These people are here to help you!" She gave him a quick knock to the back of the head.

"I'm sorry. He's a little stubborn." She smiled. It was a pretty smile, but looked a little sad.

Black*Star suddenly snapped his head up and glared at the doctor and nurse. "I am the man who's gonna surpass God!" he exclaimed. The entire thing , which sounded ridiculous on the best of days, was even worse with his raspy voice. "I don't need you to--" his own coughing cut him off.

"Black*Star!" Tsubaki placed a hand on his back and knelt down to his height. "Are you alright?" She looked at Stein and Nygus with worried eyes. "Please, is there something you can do?"

Nygus stepped forward and helped Tsubaki take Black*Star into one of the exam rooms. Stein watched them leave and couldn't help but curl a tiny smile. This seemed far more interesting than the patients from yesterday. He quickly got a hold of himself and returned his face to a stern frown. He grabbed Black*Star's file off the desk and followed the others to the exam room.

*****

"Polyps?" Tsubaki repeated. "Just what…Is it dangerous?"

Stein scratched his head. Nygus just had to leave it up to him to tell Tsubaki what was wrong with her friend. "It's not much, perfectly treatable. However…the operation can be a little tricky, considering they're near his trachea. If anything goes wrong there's a chance your friend may not be able to talk again."

Tsubaki looked into the exam room sadly. "Something tells me…he won't like that idea."

"Well, he's not going to get any better shouting that he'll make himself better with his 'god-like ways.' Isn't the surgery a better option for him?" He didn't really understand stubborn people like that.

"I think Black*Star just doesn't like relying on other people for things. I know…he may seem a little strange but…" She looked away. "He's really very sweet when you get to know him. I'll see if I can talk to him about it. I might be able to get him to agree to it." She walked into the room and began talking to the young boy.

'_Very sweet? I think it__'__s safe to say you__'__re the only girl who would say that about him._' He glanced at the patient's file again. It was wrong to think it, terribly wrong, but maybe if this kid lost his voice it wouldn't be such a bad thing. There wasn't a person in the town that hadn't thought, at least once, that Black*Star was annoying, loud, obnoxious; everyone had told him to shut up at least once. Except maybe the girl that had brought him there. She seemed nice enough--it wouldn't be fair to take her friend's voice away…

He shook his head and quickly stopped thinking about it. He had a tendency to get caught up in thinking about the 'what ifs' of certain situations. He knew it was dangerous to think like that, especially for him. Since his 'what ifs' were, more often than not, a little morose.

But it would have been all too easy for him to silence that brat forever.

"Excuse me," the young voice finally jarred him completely from the thought. "I talked to Black*Star. He's against the operation entirely. He thinks with a danger like that, it's not really worth it." Stein frowned and closed the file.

"He keeps saying that he can recover on his own," Tsubaki continued.

"Because he believes he'll surpass God or some such garbage?"

She looked away, feeling ashamed and muttered, "I'm sorry. I asked to bring him here and now he's being nothing but trouble. I'll get him to come around, I promise!" She ran back into the room and began talking to the boy again.

Nygus walked over to Stein. "You seem annoyed."

"He's refusing the operation." He narrowed his eyes. "Isn't there some way we can do it anyway?"

"You're excited about this operation, aren't you?" she commented. He didn't reply. "I'm afraid it's completely against the law to cut someone open without their permission. Even you know that." Again, he didn't reply. "All we can do is send him home if he keeps refusing."

"And let him heal himself with his own 'guts?' Does he think he's a comic book hero? Ridiculous." If he lied and had the boy sign the paperwork saying it was something else, he'd get to do the operation. But there were a lot of complications with a situation like that that he really didn't need. "Well, if we send him home, he'll only be back when it gets worse."

Tired of watching the two friends argue, Stein left the hallway and returned to the reception room. He plopped himself in the chair and glared at the file he still had in his hands. Surely there was a way to get the brat to agree to the operation. But if he used any sort of unconventional manner, Nygus would stop him before he even started. There really was no winning in this.

The doctor threw the file back on the desk and leaned back in his chair. Why was fate teasing him with the perfect operation, one that actually required him to be a skilled doctor, by taking it away before he even got to do it? He closed his eyes; the sun was splashing through the blinds again. It was easy to fall asleep in that chair…

*****

"Doctor Stein?" He opened an eye. Had he fallen asleep? "They left. It seems he doesn't want us to operate and there's nothing she can do to change his mind."

A pity.

"A few more patients came in today, but it was nothing serious. Just the flu for one and another one just wanted to renew their prescription."

How long had he been asleep?

"You know Stein, if you're bored here, you should just say so."

He snapped up quickly. "What are you talking about, Mira? I'll watch the clinic tonight," he added changing the subject. She only nodded in reply, apparently not bothering to elaborate on her previous statement.

"It can get rather boring here." he continued, seeming to forget, or perhaps not caring, that she was still listening. "But these people need this clinic."

*****

"Yo-Hoh!" Black*Star exclaimed with a jump. "It's great to be out of that place!!"

"Black*Star you sound horrible. Are you sure you don't want those doctors to help you?" She was still smiling sadly, walking one pace behind her friend. He shook his head violently. "I was talking to that nurse, and she said that it may seem like nothing, but sometimes what you have can evolve into things a lot worse."

"Tsubaki, Tsubaki…Do you really think I'm that pathetic that I can't look after myself? Besides, they said the operation was risky! I can't afford to take a risk like that!"

"You really shouldn't be yelling. You'll only make it worse. Promise me if it gets any worse that you'll go back there?"

Black*Star frowned and looked away from Tsubaki. "If it looks like I won't make it, only then can you tell them it's okay to do it." Even when he talked at a regular pitch, his voice was raspy. She could tell that it hurt him to breathe. Could it get so bad that he couldn't breathe at all? She was told there was that possibility. But it seemed that Black*Star couldn't have cared less about possibilities. It was only when things got truly bad that he would rely on others.

_'__If only he wasn__'__t so stubborn!__'_

*****

Rachel's mother tapped impatiently on her steering wheel. She was driving her daughter home from an after-school activity. Normally her father was the one to pick her up, but he got stuck working late. She hated driving at night, and the entire situation had put her in a sour mood.

Her daughter let out a tiny cough. "Rachel, are you alright? How have you been feeling since we visited the doctor anyway?"

"Pretty good mommy, the scary man's medicine really makes me feel a lot better!"

Her mother chuckled. "That's good dear. But…don't tell other people that the medicine came from 'a scary man.' Try just saying doctor…_The last thing I need is for people to start getting the wrong ideas._"

"Doctor…okay mommy!" The night driving seemed less stressful when she talked to her daughter. "Mommy, when I get better, let's go to the zoo!"

"The zoo?" She glanced over her shoulder and saw Rachel sporting a smile from ear to ear. "Well, alright. The zoo it will be. But only if you clear your next check up!"

"I'll try my hardest to get better, mommy!"

She had only glanced over her shoulder a second. It shouldn't have been long enough for anything to go wrong. But sometimes all it took was that second.

"Darn it!" At first she thought about slamming on the brakes, but she was already half way through the red light. She quickly changed her mind and aimed for the gas pedal hoping to speed through before anything bad happened.

She had always considered herself lucky. She had a great husband, a beautiful daughter, a budding career, a handful of wonderful friends--but, luck had a tendency to run dry when you needed it most. And right now, she needed it.

She remembered calling out her daughter's name. She vaguely remembered hearing Rachel's quiet 'what is it, mommy?' in reply. That was all she remembered.

*****

The other driver tried to slam on the brakes when she saw the car in the intersection. There hadn't been enough time; her car t-boned the other car, sending it spinning out of control. Her air bags had deployed and she lost sight of the situation. Luckily for her, she did not lose consciousness. She did her best to grab hold of the handle of her door and pushed it open.

"I haven't even been here an hour and look at the mess I've caused." She grumbled to herself. Finally getting out of the car she was able to see the fate of the other vehicle.

The young mother's car had slid across the road and landed in the ditch. At some point it must have flipped over, since it was resting on its roof. Another car was stopped just outside of the crash site. It was late and the town was fairly quiet at this hour. Something that was probably quite fortunate.

"Had other cars got involved, I doubt I'd be standing here right now," the woman muttered. She watched as the driver of the other car, who appeared to be a large man, got out and ran towards the car in the ditch. "I guess I should see if I can help too."

She walked over to the other car, getting there at the same time as the man. That was when she noticed he was wearing a uniform. _'__A cop. How handy.__'_

"Are you hurt at all?" he asked her first.

She shook her head. "Barely."

"Good," he said with a nod. "I might need your help. The car's in rough shape." She nodded. The man peered into the windows. "Are you alright in there?" Of course they weren't alright. Was this man an idiot? "There seems to be two people inside. Can you hear me!?"

A tiny voice replied, "I can. But my mommy…she doesn't seem to be talking to me anymore. Is my mommy alright? It's so dark in here I can't see. I'm scared." The tiny voice wavered near the end and started to cry.

"Tell me, are you hurt?" the man asked the little girl. He sighed with relief when she answered no. He turned back to the woman who had been driving the other car. "We'll have to force the door open. I've seen this kind of damage, we can't use the handle. And it looks like the mother had the doors locked from the inside anyway. Shelooks unconscious. I can't see far enough in to see the daughter, it's too dark out, but she says she's fine."

"Her saying she's fine doesn't mean anything. One, she's a little girl--and in a situation like this I'd hardly take her word. And two, she's in shock. She might not know it, but for all we know she could have no legs right now." Perhaps not the best example to use, she realized. The cop's eyes widened to a near impossible size. "Well, that could be a bit of an exaggeration. But still, it's not ok to assume she's safe just because she thinks is."

"Alright," the man said with a nod. "That seems to make sense. This is bad…worse than it seems." He placed his large hands firmly on the door and began to pull. "Put your arms around my waist and help me pull!" He had meant it as a suggestion to her, but through his gritted teeth and strained breath it sounded more like an order.

The woman seemed reluctant to oblige at first, perhaps trying to hold onto some sort of hidden pride, but she eventually helped to try and pull the door open. It was a battle, but they soon heard the rewarding 'pop' sound as the door finally gave into them.

"She's badly hurt…" the cop said. The woman doubted he knew just how severe her wounds were, but she had to agree. The young mother was indeed badly hurt. He reached in to undo her seatbelt and slowly eased her out of the car.

"Be careful!" the woman cried out. "It's dangerous to move her like that! In this kind of situation you could only make things worse!" The cop didn't seem to be listening. Before she could understand what was going on, he was passing the wounded driver to her. "What?"

"Hold her for now; I need to get the little girl out."

"Look you idiot!" she snapped, "I have a first aid kit in my car. I'll grab that so we can at least do this without killing her." She slipped her jacket off and laid it out on the grass. "Put her on that, it's at least better than holding her upright like that." The man simply did as he was told.

Cursing up a storm under her breathe, the woman walked back across the intersection to her own car. It was damaged, but only in the front. She tore open the passenger side door and flicked the switch to pop the trunk. She only prayed that her reason for being here was going to be worth all of this.

After she grabbed the first aid kit, she stormed back to the dense cop. She knew it wasn't entirely right to feel so enraged when another person was so hurt, but she was too flustered to care.

"You're terribly resourceful," the cop said when she got back. "That's the biggest first aid kit I've ever seen." She only glanced at him a little. "The hospital, it's a little ways from here, but if we take my car we can get there quick enough."

"Just leave the scene?" she asked bitterly. "Shouldn't we wait for an ambulance or something?" She was tending to whatever wounds she could with the first aid kit. _'__All we need is enough so that a ride to the hospital won__'__t kill her._'

The cop was sitting on the grass now. While the woman had trekked across the asphalt, he had managed to get Rachel out of the car. She didn't appear hurt, which actually made the woman feel stupid for going on about not trusting the kid, only adding to her frustration.

"My name is Sid Barret," the cop said suddenly. "I'm the chief cop around here. I've already alerted the others and they're on their way to clean up the mess. You can either stay here and wait for them, or come to the hospital with me. I've heard you shouldn't trust people in shock, so I don't really think that you're as well as you say you are." There was a hint of teasing in his voice, and that only perturbed her more.

"And your car is really a better mode of transportation than an ambulance?" she scoffed. "You said the hospital wasn't far. I think that this woman can hold out long enough for proper transportation." The tone of her voice wasn't anger, just pure sass.

His reply shocked her. "The clinic doesn't have an ambulance."

Here she was, sent from the top of the crème to investigate a doctor here and the small worthless town didn't even have an ambulance. She was beginning to think even more that this was a waste of time. She was going to leave with nothing after breaking her car, a nail, and perhaps her pride a little as well?

"How frustrating!"

*****

Stein clicked away at the computer. It was hardly a meaningful way to spend time; he was just reading things he already knew. He checked his email occasionally, but it didn't change. The same newsletter from his old university was still the newest thing in there every time he looked.

He was bored.

Sure, he could go check on Soul again, but the kid was asleep. Apparently trying to sneak out once was enough for him and he was staying put.

He knew it was important to have someone here at all hours. He and Nygus had agreed on that when they had started the clinic back up, but perhaps they were being stupid. The town was small---was there even a point for a clinic like theirs in a place like this? The city near them had grown and was close enough now that the clinic was beginning to seem like overkill.

"Is this just another way of trying to tell myself to get out of here?" he said with what he would have called a laugh. "Mira could run this place well enough if she took out the operation rooms and made it just a doctor's office. She said so herself when I said no to doing this with her at first."

He placed his hand on the screw through his head and gave it a slight turn. The creaking sound was oddly soothing to him. Even the sensation of cold metal against his hand was a pleasant escape from his thoughts. No one ever asked him about that thing, though it did get a lot of glances. It was probably for the better, if he tried to explain to someone that its presence actually made him feel calm, he was sure he'd be locked up in his own room with a new jacket.

The phone rang. "This had better not be a prank call," he grunted. He grabbed the phone with his right hand, still turning the screw with his left. "Hello? Doctor Franken Stein speaking, this is the clinic."

"Stein!" a familiar voice bellowed into his ear. His left hand stopped, no amount of cranking could make him feel any better than he suddenly did. It was Sid, and Sid sounded worried. There were only two reasons Sid called the hospital, and one would have hardly left him sounding worried. Which could only mean…

"Stein! There was a crash at the intersection by the school. You know the one right? Anyway, I've got both drivers in the car, and the one had a little girl. The little girl and the one woman seem fine but the other--"

A voice interrupted Sid. "Listen, the girl's mother is in bad shape. It appears her one lung has been pierced by the glass from her windshield. Her breathing is terribly erratic. Not to mention she is covered with lacerations all over. From what this lug of a man tells me, we'll be there soon. Have the ER prepped for when we get there, if your petty little excuse for a clinic has something like that."

"…Who are you?" He wasn't the best at remembering people's names, but he was pretty good with voices, and that wasn't one he knew.

"Does that really matter?" she hissed in reply and hung up the phone. No one important then.

He stood up, feeling oddly energized considering he hadn't slept since that cat nap during the day. A pierced lung? Multiple lacerations? It was already more interesting than the case with Soul. And who was that woman he had talked to? The other driver Sid had mentioned? She sounded like she had a good handle on the situation, something no one else in the small town would have had. So she had to be an outsider.

Curiosity. It was the first thing that put him in a good mood. The second was satisfying that curiosity. Once he had the answer, that's when it stopped mattering and he set whatever it was aside and forgot about it. Right now he was curious about that voice and the woman's condition.

'_I__'__ll call Nygus if I need her,__'_he told himself. He left the reception room and entered the back hallway. As he walked he tried his best to keep a grin from spreading across his face. Lungs were inside people, and to get there you had to cut them open. Why was it that when he had that thought, it made him feel so good?

The ER room was almost always prepped ahead of time, so it didn't take long to set it up. Had this been a busier hospital, maybe he'd have had a previous patient that had just left. Maybe he would have actually had something to clean up. But this was a small town, and a small clinic--so small it didn't need to exist. So all he had to do was set out the sterile equipment. If Sid had said who the patient was, he could have dug out the file.

"That's right. He was cut off by that voice." He heard the sound of Sid's beat up car storming down the road, jarring his thoughts. "Sounds like they're here."

*****

Yellow eyes looked at Stein, sharp yellow eyes. If he didn't know better, he was sure they just tore into his mind and saw everything he kept from the world. Even her expression after a short while of staring, seemed to suggest that she had finished evaluating him and had made up her mind about him. He wondered what she had decided.

She pushed past him, allowing Sid to enter the clinic with the patient. "Am I the only one moving around here with any urgency?" he asked, feeling a little flustered. "Where should I put her? Usually Nygus has a stretcher or something ready."

"Ah, sorry," Stein grabbed the stretcher from the other side of the room and helped Sid lower the woman onto it. "Oh…this is that girl's mother." He really hadn't wanted to see her again so soon. "I'll take her to the operation room. You can call Nygus."

"Ahh…she'll be mad if I call her at this hour," Sid said, sounding more like a kicked puppy than a cop.

The woman's yellow eyes twinkled. "Is this Nygus the nurse?" Sid and Stein both nodded. "No need to call her then. My name is Medusa Gorgon. I happen to be a nurse myself. I'll assist you in the operation."

"Oh, she was a nurse!" the cop exclaimed, as if the entire meaning of the world had suddenly been revealed to him. "It all makes sense now."

A smile played across Medusa's face. It was impossible to tell what that smile was saying before it returned to a frown. "Shouldn't we hurry? This patient's in danger."

"Will my mommy be okay?" Rachel asked, peeking her tiny head out from behind Sid's leg. She was clutching at the cops shirt the entire time. "I just want my mommy to speak to me…"

Sid knelt down and placed a hand on the girl's head. His hand was so large that it practically swallowed her skull. "Don't worry. Your mother is in great hands. You know this doctor was the one that made you better too, right? So don't worry!" She smiled.

"That's right," she said joyfully. "This creepy man helped me feel better, he can make mommy feel better too."

"Creepy man," the nurse said with a clicking sort of chuckle. "It seems you're popular with kids."

*****

"You're actually more capable than I would have thought," Medusa said. He couldn't help but think she was mocking him. The operation was going smoothly. The bleeding had been stopped and all that was left was repairing the lung the best they could. "If we don't do this carefully, her lung could collapse."

"The glass in the wound is the only thing keeping it from collapsing. As long as we seal the wound quickly after we remove it, things should be fine."

"Are you up for something like that, country doctor?" she asked with a sneer. He ignored that comment. "You seem to enjoy stitches, so I'm sure you can handle this."

"I'm going to pull the glass out, when it's out, pinch the wound shut. I'll stitch it from there. Even if her lung did collapse, it's repairable. But let's not mess this up." A Pneumothorax…that did sound exciting. But collapsing her lung for his own sick desire to prolong the operation, especially under the watch of those piercing yellow eyes, did not seem like a good idea. He had had his fun, cutting open the woman that was causing him so much trouble in his mind.

He looked at the glass as Medusa handed him the forceps. If he pulled it out wrong, he could make things worse. The woman could die--if she had died sooner she never would have told him to leave. Had she told him to leave?

With a swift motion he pulled the glass out. That moment lasted for far longer than he had anticipated. When it was in her lung, it was impossible to have known the glass was so large. But it still came out smoothly.

Medusa's hand moved lightning fast, pinching the wound shut with two fingers. "We're in the green," she said. Was it his imagination, or did she sound relieved? "Please, proceed with the operation."

He stitched up the wound in the lung. Next to cutting things open, stitching things up was his favourite step. It marked the end of things. He took one last lingering look over the area. It could have been passed off as making sure everything was okay before shutting her up, but in reality he was just debating if he should seal her up. If he walked away right now--no she wouldn't die. He was sure this nurse was capable enough to stitch up the final wound.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked. "We're done here, stop wasting time."

*****

Sid sat in the reception room with the small child Rachel. Whether he had wanted it or not, the girl decided that the best place to be was in his lap. She was sleeping, which made Sid feel better. Until she fell asleep she had continued to ask him about how her mother was doing. Sid wasn't a man who knew much about medicine, doctors, surgery, any of that stuff. He kept telling her that her mother would be fine, but he really didn't know.

That woman from the other car had said something about a pierced lung. That sounded bad. But then, Nygus had told him time and again that he said everything sounded bad.

When he heard the clicking sounds of heels followed by Stein's shuffling footsteps coming down the halls he felt his heart race. He slid the girl from his lap into his arm and stood up to greet them. "Stein! How did it go!? She's going to be alright isn't she?"

"She is. Her breathing will never be the same, but she'll live."

"What a relief…Thank you missus!" He slammed Medusa on the back, causing her breath to jump and her eyes to widen. She quickly regained her usual composure. "I'm sure that if you hadn't of been there things wouldn't have worked out to well, what with your first aid and all."

"It's nothing," the nurse said with a sickeningly sweet smile all of the sudden. "Really, I was just doing my job." It took all her energy to keep that smile as Sid shook her hand. He was a rather enthusiastic man it seemed.

"Anyway, I have a hotel I need to check into and business to attend to around here."

'_So she was from out of town,_' Stein thought, 'f_rom another hospital, probably a larger hospital. One in a big city__…__one that__'__s always busy__…'_

"I can drive you there!" Sid suggested. "I'll need to know where you are to finish filing reports on the accident and all that anyway." Sid's excitement made Rachel stir.

"Mommy…" she said as she opened her eyes.

Sid's large face beamed down at her. "Guess what! You're mother is going to be fine." He handed her over to Stein, much to his surprise. "Now, little Rachel, I have to take this lady to her hotel. I'll leave you here with Stein. I'm sure he'll let you see your mommy when she's ready."

Stein glanced at the child he had just been handed. She smiled at him. "Thanks for saving my mommy, and before that you saved me! You're the best creepy man ever."

"What a fine compliment!" Medusa said with a laugh, "'The best creepy man ever.'" She left with Sid. He had to wonder if he'd see those piercing yellow eyes again.

And just what was he going to do with Rachel? He didn't particularly like children.


	3. Ch1 Op3 Green Heart

As promised, its the next week and here's a new chapter. I never have much to say here---please enjoy.

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Trauma Center

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Operation 3: Green Heart

_He couldn__'__t breath. He couldn__'__t breath! He had been asleep__…__if he hadn__'__t woken up---He wanted to yell out to someone, but he couldn__'__t speak. Would it end like this? Could the man who would surpass God really die in such a simple and pathetic way? He rolled off his bed, hoping that the sound would be loud enough to wake Tsubaki downstairs._

_He should have listened to Tsubaki._

_But you never know that until things turn out wrong._

_He was going to die, without accomplishing anything at all. He was going to die, because he was too stubborn to listen. But it wasn't right to rely on those doctors. If he couldn't do it himself--_

"We have him breathing again," Stein told Tsubaki. She was sitting in the reception room. It was already nine in the morning; she had brought Black*Star to the clinic an hour ago. When she'd first got there, Nygus hadn't been there yet, it was just Stein and a little girl who was colouring what looked like a medical diagram in a thick book. Seeing the situation, he quickly, for him, got Black*Star into the operating room.

Nygus had come in shortly after that and, seeing Tsubaki in the reception room, quickly dropped her jacket and purse ,before heading for the operating room, without a word. To hear now that he was breathing again, the young girl felt her entire body sigh with happiness.

"Not on his own though," the doctor continued. Her happiness was strung with a slight sadness again. "He's on the tube." The tube? Why did doctors sometimes assume regular people like her knew what the heck they were talking about? "So, what's it going to be? Are we going to have to fight with him to get this operation done again?"

Tsubaki shook her head. "Black*Star told me, if it seemed like he couldn't win on his own, that I was to ask you to do the operation. Even if he hadn't said that…after what I saw this morning…"

"Miss, you sound so sad!" Rachel said, looking up from the intestinal track she was colouring. "Don't worry, the scary man can save your friend. He can save anybody. Like my mommy! And me!"

She smiled at the girl. "I'm sure that he can." She turned her attention back to the doctor. "Please, do the operation."

"I'll need you to sign this." Stein pushed the clipboard her way. "Under the line for guardian; it's up to you to get him to sign this after he's better. Understand?" She nodded as she took the pen from him. She couldn't help but notice that even his pen was covered with stitches that were drawn on with a sharpie. She knew she was probably the only person, but she found the doctor's quirks to be rather amusing.

"It's all done then." He snapped the clipboard back. "We'll perform the operation tomorrow when he has a bit more strength. As long as he's here, we'll make sure he continues to breath."

"Can I visit him?"

Stein made a slight face at the idea and then finally shrugged. "I guess it won't hurt anything."

"Can I visit my mommy?" Rachel piped up.

"Again?" The little girl nodded in reply. Stein sighed. "Sure. Come on." Much to his dismay, she seemed to think that following someone meant holding their hand. He was unnaturally uncomfortable, not really liking children at all. Tsubaki followed them until Stein pointed at the room Black*Star was in. She left the other two to sit by her friend's side.

"Oh Black*Star…" Her friend was hooked up to a breathing apparatus. His heart rate was being monitored--she'd never seen her friend in such rough shape before. "I know you can't hear me Black*Star, but I signed you up for the surgery. Those doctors are going to make you better. Don't worry, it doesn't make you any less of a man in my eyes. Actually, being able to know when to rely on others is a strength; it shows maturity. You see, by allowing them to help you, you'll actually be one step closer to surpassing God."

*****

"Mr. Creepy Man?" The name had earned itself a title now? "Mommy can't talk right now, is what you said, right? Will she be able to talk tomorrow?"

"We'll see."

"Say, where's that other lady from yesterday? The big police man said that she really helped save mommy's life too. If there's anything mommy taught me, it's to thank those that have brought joy to my life. I think that's what she said…but she isn't here anymore."

"You may not see her again." _He_ may not see her again. Medusa Gorgon. What a curious woman. She had only been there a short while; not enough time to curb his own interest in her. "But if I happen to see her again, I'll thank her for you." He wouldn't see her though.

But she was in town and she did have to report back to Sid. Sid even knew where her hotel was. It wasn't impossible to see her again, but, if he did go there, what would be his excuse? No, he wasn't good with things like that. Things like what?

"The other day, my mommy told me that old friends turn up in the strangest places." He wouldn't go counting the strange nurse the two of them had known for only a short while an old friend. But he wasn't about to go popping the kid's delusional little bubble. "I miss hearing my mommy's voice. Um, can I phone my daddy? He must be worried."

Stein had forgotten that there was probably other family involved.

He took Rachel back to the reception room and let her use the phone. Nygus was sitting at the desk. She smiled when she saw the two. "Enjoying babysitting?" she asked. His face answered her question better than any words could.

"So, I hear last night was interesting. I was late this morning since Sid was telling me all about it. I wonder where that nurse rolled in from anyway."

"She seemed like she came from the city. Something about her…"

"Well, her car isn't fit to drive, so she'll probably be here a while. Maybe she'll come back to the clinic to help out at some point."

Help out? Did Nygus forget that most days there wasn't enough work to satisfy even one of them? "I wouldn't count on it though. From the sounds of things, at least in Sid's story, she seemed a little cold."

Cold? He guessed that was a good word for her.

"Stein? You seem a little out of sorts lately, more so than usual for you. Is everything alright?"

He looked at her over the rims of his glasses.

"Maybe you're just tired, the bags under your eyes are impossible to ignore."

"I guess that could be the case. Lately I have felt rather tired."

Nygus threw one of the hospital pagers at him. "Go. Get some rest; I'll page you if things get busy here. Go home, read a book, take a bath…whatever you do in your spare time."

"Thanks Mira." He turned to Rachel. "Nygus is going to look after you for a while. If you run out of pictures in that book, there's another one on that table there you can colour in."

"My dad's coming here," the girl said. "He said that the police told him what had happened and that we were here. He's happy to hear that I'm okay. And that mommy is too."

"That's good." Stein grabbed his jacket from the closet and walked out the front door of the clinic. Where would he go? Home was probably the best option. He really could use a rest like Nygus had suggested, but at the same time he was very curious. He reached the road that if he went one way, would take him home, the other way--to the police station. He turned towards the police station. It would be impossible to sleep until he at least knew a little bit more about that woman.

Medusa Gorgon.

*****

Much like Nygus, Sid had picked a job that, in any other place, would have been busy, would have been exciting. But this town was neither busy nor exciting all that often, so it didn't surprise Stein at all when he entered the precinct and saw Sid and his colleagues playing card games and drinking coffee.

"Stein!" the large man called out to him in greeting. He set down his hand of cards and came over to give him a powerful slam in the back. Stein swore he heard something snap. "Good job last night. Good job." Another powerful hit and then Sid pulled away. "That woman who helped you, what was her name…"

"Medusa."

"Yes! She was in earlier this morning. Actually, you just missed her." How unfortunate. "Says she's only going to be here for a couple of days. Her car's in the auto body shop, but it doesn't sound like she wants to stick around until it's done. Must be nice to have enough money to hardly give a care about your vehicle." That was true. Stein didn't have a car, more because he didn't want one than anything, and Sid had had the same car for as long as Stein had been here. "Well, if she doesn't want it that bad, maybe I'll ask her if I can take it off her hands."

"I doubt she'd pay the repair costs for you as well, even if she did agree to something like that…which I doubt to begin with. So she's staying at a hotel?"

Sid nodded. "The one on the other end of town. Apparently whatever hoity-toity hospital she came from wasn't smart enough to stick her in the one closer to the clinic. Speaking of your clinic, she said she was here to evaluate it or something. I think. It was hard enough getting that much out of her, let alone what she meant by it. You don't think they're gonna shut the place down do you?"

Shut the place down? Right, he had been thinking about that earlier. With the size of the city growing, the range of its care was growing too. Soon a hospital like theirs wouldn't be needed. And a doctor like him would have to look for new work, perhaps at one of those larger city hospitals. One that was busy. One that was filled with interesting cases, interesting patients…

"I heard Black*Star was taken to the hospital today," Sid said suddenly, knocking Stein's thoughts off topic. "That kid…I hope he's not being too much of a handful for you. I see that kid here so often with that brat Soul, real delinquent types. Ah, but you can't hate them for it; they're just teenaged boys." Was it just him, or did it seem like Sid actually had some sort of affection for the little whelps. "Anyway, you probably came here for something more important than listening to a friend ramble on about brats who know all the best walls to spray paint. What did you need?"

Stein adjusted his glasses. What did he want? Wasn't he going home? "I think I just took a wrong turn," he muttered. Well didn't that sound smart? "I think I'll go home now. It was nice talking to you."

"Gee, every day you seem just a little more off beat lately. When you get home, be sure to get some rest." Stein nodded slowly as he turned to leave. Everyone kept telling him there was something wrong lately…

*****

And how had he ended up here? He was going home.

Doctor Franken Stein stood in front of the hotel on the other end of town. It had taken most of what was left of the morning to get there by foot. He should have felt tired, but he didn't. He walked through the front door, which made the same tiny bells the clinic had jingle cheerfully. He was here now, no doubt driven by his own curiosity. He didn't even remember the walk. Just that he kept telling himself that he was going home.

And yet here he was, standing inside the hotel at the other end of town.

"May I help you?" The receptionist had a kind voice. But it was her job to have a kind voice, so it didn't mean anything.

Stein looked at her. "You live in town don't you?" the receptionist commented. It was impossible to forget the town doctor, covered in stitches from head to toe, a screw through his head. "What sort of business do you have here? Actually before that…" She pointed to a garbage can. "There's no smoking in here."

He could hardly remember lighting the cigarette to begin with, but he listened and, after pinching the one end between two fingers, threw it out. "I'm here to check up on someone. She was in a car crash last night, but never had any medical treatment. I came here to make sure she was still alright."

"Oh you must be talking about that nurse. Sid told me all about the crash when he drove her here last night. Seems there have been a lot of crashes lately," she said with a sigh. "Did you know that woman came all the way here from Shibusen? I've heard about that place on the news, they say it's a top notch facility."

It was moments like these that Stein blessed living in a small community. Had this not been a family run business, the receptionist would have been trained not to break customer confidentiality. But here was this kind voiced girl spouting away things that she knew simply because of her job to someone completely unrelated to the woman in most ways. He felt the need to prod her for more. "Did she say why she was here?" Stein asked the girl. "This seems like a strange place for a woman of her standards to be."

"Hmm, well her reason for staying on the log in sheet was just 'evaluation.' I'm not sure what that means, I'm sorry. You could ask her yourself. You need to do the check up anyway. She's in Room Four. She's already left once this morning, so I know she's awake. Actually, she just got back from the police station not that long before you showed up. Said she had to file a report, when I asked her where she was going this morning. I guess it has something to do with that crash.

"How's the other woman doing?" Did she ever stop talking?

"Fine," Stein replied. Before she could say or ask anything else, he muttered a goodbye and walked down the hallway to find room four. It was easy to find; the tiny place that called itself a hotel only had ten rooms in total. Even rooms lined one side, odd rooms on the other.

He lifted a hand to knock on the door and that was when he realized, he didn't know why he was there. Curious … but, about what? Her purpose?

Yes. That was it.

He was curious as to just what kind of goal she had in mind coming to this area. Shibusen was not close. It was not in the neighbouring city that had been threatening to take over the small town soon. No it was further away than that. So Sid's surprisingly good theory for her purpose was now void, so then why? There was really only one way to find out.

The doctor finally rapped on the door. He heard the same overly sweet voice she had used at the end of the night reply, "Room service? Just one minute."

_'__Perhaps she has a split personality,__'_ he concluded to himself. At one moment her voice was a pure mock, but then she was capable of that honey dipped tone as well. He stopped mentally diagnosing her when the door opened.

There were the same yellow piercing eyes. No matter how much sugar she used in her voice it could never mask those yellow eyes. But it seemed she wanted to try anyway. "Oh? You? And to what pleasure do I owe a visit from the fine doctor of this backwater town, hmm?"

"I've heard you're from Shibusen," he replied. He toyed with his glasses. "I guess I just wonder what you're doing here."

She smiled. When she did, her eyes shut. That was a better mask than her voice. "You came all the way here to ask me that? It must be slow in that clinic of yours." She opened her eyes a little and looked down the hallway without turning her head. "I was sent from Shibusen to check out the hospitals in this area for any good candidates. Shibusen is thinking of expanding its workforce lately. Our research facilities and operating rooms could use a few more hands. So I'm only here to see if anyone qualifies for our standards."

Shibusen. Even the receptionist had heard of that place, so it was no surprise that a doctor like Stein, who had graduated from a high profile university, had heard of it as well. It was the top leading facility of its type in the world, responsible for countless medical breakthroughs, cures, vaccines--you name it. It wasn't a huge surprise to hear her say they were expanding, just in the last week the news had said the organization had bought out two or three smaller drug research facilities.

"I was told by someone in the city close to here that there was a hospital here. So I thought I'd check it out. What a waste of my time though, coming all this way to find out it's some clinic that doesn't even have its own ambulance." She was amazingly good at keeping up her honey voice even when she was being harsh. But her tone quickly darkened back to what Stein could only figure was her true voice when she continued. "But I think I did find one interesting thing."

"Interesting?" Stein repeated, doing his best to hide his sudden excitement. He felt something inside of him jump. Shibusen … a place like that--a place like that. "What did you find that is interesting?"

Her smiled arched up in a strange sort of way. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Doctor. Interesting doesn't mean anything but idle curiosity." Curiosity. "I haven't decided yet if I'll ask this 'interesting thing' what it is I might ask it. Call me before your next operation, Doctor Stein."

"There's an operation tomorrow." He spat the words out quickly before she closed the door. Why was he so anxious to say that? Because a place like that…

She gave him the same intriguing smile. "Oh, really? Well, I will be there then. I'll see you tomorrow." It had been the honey voice again that time as she slipped him a tiny piece of paper with her room's direct number on it. She closed the door. Tomorrow. The doctor turned to leave.

The receptionist called out a goodbye as he walked out the doors. The doors that made the same musical bell sound as his clinic. He doubted the doors on a place like Shibusen had those tiny little bells. A place like that probably had doors like the grocery store did, that slid open on their own. Really, the tiny bells that were on the hotel and the clinic were something that only small places had. Shibusen was not a small place. No, it was a place that was always busy; a place that was always working on finding new things. Always throwing a new thought at its people-a new mystery to solve, a new illness to battle with--

A place like that was the perfect place for a man like him, right?

*****

Finally his feet brought him home. It was already getting late since the walk back from the hotel had taken a while. He hadn't rested at all like he had been told to. No, he was too excited to rest. He threw his house keys on the table, lit a cigarette and slumped in front of his computer.

"Shi…bu…sen…" he said, as he typed the word into Bobble. He clicked the first website that popped up and began to read.

*****

"Good morning, Stein."

"Good morning, Mira."

"Good morning, Doctor Stein."

"Good morning, Mr. Creepy Man!"

"Good morning, Tsubaki, Ra---", he paused. Didn't that girl say she was going home with her dad yesterday? "Rachel?"

She smiled a huge smile. She was sitting at the little table colouring in the second medical book the doctor had offered her the day before. This time it was a picture of a heart. She answered the question that was on his mind in a sing song tone.

"My daddy had to go to work. So he dropped me off here because I told him I liked it here!" What kind of dad uses a clinic as a baby sitting service? "Last night, mommy was a bit better and she was able to talk to me and daddy! Isn't that amazing! I was so happy! I told mommy that the scary man helped make her all better! She was really grateful!"

"Is that so…" He turned to Nygus. "How is Black*Star's condition?"

"He's still on the ventilator," she replied. "But he hasn't gotten any worse. He's in better shape than when he arrived yesterday at least. So we should be fine to do the operation."

"Carefully…" his voice trailed off as he spoke, "one wrong move and we'll only make things worse…I have to make a phone call." He grabbed the phone off the table and pulled the piece of paper he was given from his pocket. Seven digits, wait for a moment, then the room number and finally pound. He waited until she picked up and snapped out a hello. "Not a morning person, are we."

"Oh it's you," Medusa said. "In that case you must be starting the operation soon. I'll be right over to your shabby, little clinic." She hung up.

"Not one for goodbyes, huh…"

"Who was that?" Nygus asked.

Stein wandered over to the closet to hang up his jacket. "That nurse from the other day. Apparently she wants to evaluate us or something." Nygus still looked confused. "That is to say…she's from Shibusen. Scouting for new recruits."

Now she got it.

"Mr. Creepy Man, what does that mean? Scouting for new recruits?" He looked over at Rachel. She was colouring a heart, why did she have a green crayon in her hand?

"You realize that that's a heart, right."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Don't be stupid! Hearts look like this!" Using her little fingers she drew a heart shape in the air. She went back to colouring, forgetting completely about the question she had just asked.

The doctor sighed. "I'll go prep the room," Nygus said suddenly. "We can start as soon as that other nurse gets here." She left the room. She sounded a little upset. Or was that his imagination?

He sighed again and sat down in one of the chairs next to Rachel. He looked at the heart. Green…She really didn't have a clue. If he cut someone open and saw a heart like that inside--well he'd have to cut the heart open next. He wondered what colour it was on the inside. Perhaps something equally as obscure, like a purple or a bright orange?

"You're awfully quiet this morning?" he said in a questioning tone to Tsubaki, who was sitting on the other side of the young artist.

She looked up and smiled. That same plain, but sad smile she always seemed to have. "I'm just praying for his safety right now," was all she replied.

Soon the only sound in the room was Rachel humming as she gleefully coloured a diagram of the brain with a vibrant blue crayon. It seemed like that form of silence could last forever, until the tiny bells on the door jingled softly. The sound of a woman cursing about the smell of her taxi driver followed shortly after that, along with the tiny click of the heels she was wearing.

Medusa hung her coat up in the closet and turned to face the three who were sitting there staring at her. "Yes, I'm here now. Do we all need to stare?"

"Did the taxi driver smell like beans?" Rachel asked. "He's a friend of my Daddy's."

Medusa ignored the question completely and made her way towards the door separating the reception room from the rest of the clinic. "Are you coming, Doctor Stein? Or do you intend to leave your nurse and I to do all the work?" She pulled the door open and went inside without him.

Stein pulled himself from the couch. "Have fun you two," he said and went to the door. After a quick adjustment to his glasses, he opened the door as well.

*****

"My name is Mira Nygus," one nurse said to the other as Stein entered the room. "I'm the nurse at this clinic."

"And I am Medusa Gorgon., but please…just Medusa. I'm a nurse from Shibusen. But I think you've already been told that. Don't mind my presence at all. Just perform the operation as the two of you normally would. I'm merely observing, to see if my own hunch is correct."

That was the first Stein had heard anything about a hunch.

"I'll try not to let my nerves get the best of me," Nygus commented. There were no nerves in her voice at all. "Having someone as important as you here, Miss Medusa." There was also no sign in her voice that she really thought Medusa was important. "Shibusen, that's a Japanese word?"

"What a strange question. It's just a word the creator liked," Medusa replied.

Nygus nodded. "That's good. I've heard some strange things about the first part of it meaning death."

"Lots of things get unfortunate names. Take our dear Doctor Franken Stein here, a prime example." He liked his name. "Now, pretend that I'm not here and get on with it. I'd rather not waste my entire day here."

"Black*Star, age 18, has developed polyps on his trachea that have grown to restrict his breathing. The objection is to burn away the polyps with a laser. Stein, I don't think I have to remind you again that this is a tricky operation. Please be careful."

"Yes, I know, Mira." He slid on his gloves. "Let's begin."

Those golden, yellow eyes pierced the back of his skull as he made the first incision. Usually he was happy for the masks they had to wear during surgery; no one could see the large grin he wore as he cut the patient open. But those yellow eyes--even though he was wearing the mask and even though she was looking at the back of his head--they seemed to know. They seemed to know last night, and they seemed to know right then.

He had to stop being distracted, this was an important operation. Not only was it tricky, but the woman standing in the room with them could have been the ticket he needed to take on something greater. Stop getting distracted. He longed to grab the screw in his head and give it a large turn, but his hands were busy. He just had to do his best to pretend those yellow eyes weren't there on his own.

"There are the polyps," Nygus said. Her voice helped keep him on track a little. "Had he let us in here sooner, we could have gotten this before it got this bad." She handed Stein the laser. "Please, be careful."

He stared at the tiny protrusions in the membrane. Some were small, but for the most part they were large; easy targets. He picked them off one by one with the laser. This wasn't as exciting as he had hoped. Occasionally he had to apply an antibiotic gel to help stop the bleeding, but for the most part the operation was rather routine. It wasn't long before the polyps were cleared.

"Great job Stein," his nurse chimed. "The boy's vitals are already on the rise. Let's close him up. This operation is over." He did as he was told, the stitching doing little towards lightening his mood.

Disappointed? He couldn't say that out loud.

The other person in the room couldn't use that word however. She was anything but disappointed. _'__He__'__s perfect. You can tell by the way he moves during the operation that his mind is functioning on another plane all together. He__'__s just what we need to further our studies. I__'__m sure of it. One more operation, I__'__ll need one more operation to decide.__'_

"I'm impressed," she cooed. "The nurse is nothing out of the ordinary, but you…You're certainly suited for something better than this. Shibusen material, I can't be sure yet. I'll stick around for one more operation. You already have my number." She turned to leave. "I'll be waiting." She waved once as she walked out of the room. The two watched her leave unsure of what to say.

It was Nygus that spoke first. "Stein, I think if she does give you the offer you should go for it. You're obviously uncomfortable here lately. I can tell, you're better suited to a place that not only let's you operate on people, but let's you experiment and solve puzzles. If you go, the clinic will be fine. The city's hospital is close enough that if I turn this into a regular doctor's office, the town won't be at a major loss."

Had she been reading his thoughts lately? No, he'd been too obvious. "Thanks, Mira. But that's only if I pass whatever her high end standards are. We have to tell Tsubaki that her friend will be alright." He left the room first and stood in the hallway for a moment.

Him, a doctor at Shibusen?

Him, a doctor on the front lines of medical research? Working at the place that has the most powerful equipment?

He had to stop getting his hopes up. If Medusa Gorgon failed to be impressed, then he would be stuck at this clinic. He didn't really have the guts to go to the city and look for a job there. Who would really hire a doctor with a screw in their head? Unless they had known him prior, like Nygus, or had seen him in action and liked what they saw. Yes, this was his chance.

But if it fell through…there would always be patients. And really, a knife was all he needed to truly make himself happy; that and a person to cut with it.

*****

Tsubaki jumped from her seat when Medusa entered the reception room. but the woman did not say a word to her. She only grabbed her jacket and left. Worried, the young girl sank back into her chair.

Rachel gave her a tiny smile. "Why do you look so sad? Your friend will be fine. That creepy man can save anybody, that's what I think."

"You're a very kind girl," Tsubaki told her. "I think I'm happy your dad dropped you off here today. I would hate to be waiting out here all by myself. So I'm thankful to you."

The girl raised her red crayon in a triumphant pose, making Tsubaki smile. "You're welcome!" She didn't really have a clue what Tsubaki had just tried to say, but figured that that was the best reply. "You have a pretty smile! You should stop wasting it on looking so sad. That's what my mommy tells me sometimes when I stub my toe and stuff."

"Such a sweet girl…"

Tsubaki jumped again when she heard the far door open. This time it was Doctor Stein who walked out. "Black*Star--"

"Will be fine," he answered before she could ask. "And, whether the rest of the world thinks it's a good thing or not, as soon as he's done recovering, he'll be able to scream at the top of his lungs and annoy the general populace once more."

"I'm so grateful…" Tsubaki said. It was something Stein never understood, but the girl began to cry. He could hardly remember crying for a sad reason, so crying for a happy thing made even less sense to him than most people. "Thank you…thank you so much. Black*Star too--he may not say it, but he will thank you and Nurse Nygus from the bottom of his heart. I wish there was something I could do for the two of you in return."

"It's our job. We don't need anything more than the bills paid."

"Your 'job' saved my Black*Star, my closest friend…the person most dear to me…Your 'job' saved this person's life. What is doing your job to you is a miracle to the people in my position.

"For some people a job is…selling someone a meal. For some it's driving someone to a certain place. For you, it's saving lives." She looked away suddenly feeling embarrassed. "I know it's selfish, but if you could just try to sound…ah…I'm really sorry." She was looking at her feet now. "I know! I'll bake Nurse Nygus and you some cookies, even a thank you like that…you'll have to accept!"

"That's true. Only an idiot says no to home baked cookies," he said, doing his best to muster a smile up from somewhere. He walked past her, took one look at what Rachel was colouring out of morbid curiosity (which happened to be a green lung) and then sat down at the reception desk.

"When can I see him?" Tsubaki asked. She was still facing the door.

Stein turned the screw in his head a little, satisfying that earlier urge. "Probably later in the evening. You're welcome to kick around here if you want. Everyone else seems to."

He leaned back in the chair. It was his own rule that you couldn't smoke in here, one that made sense, it _was_ a clinic, however he really wanted one right now.

The operation had been a let down in his mind. What he was told after it--riveting. But he wouldn't know the conclusion of that until the next operation. And in this small town, it was hard to say when that would be. True, they had been having a busy week. But he was sure now that he craved an operation more so than ever, that it would probably slow down and the next handful of patients would be the same old dredge it usually was.

He could go out and smash a car into something, it seemed to be the popular way of getting things achieved. But it would also cause for some unwanted side effects. He could just lie and say the one patient was deathly ill and needed an operation just for the sake of it.

Ah, but the last time he tried that Nygus, had seen right through it and almost kicked him out. Why had he done that before? Right…it had been months and he really wanted to cut something open, when he had told Nygus that she had only told him that that was an unhealthy urge to have. He already knew that, telling him that wasn't going to stop anything.

But at that time it had been months between operations. Would it be months before the next operation again this time? Would that woman really wait around that long? He doubted it. She seemed like the type to get bored easy and she'd probably leave.

Medusa Gorgon. Would he be able to impress her?


	4. Ch1 Op4 Ripped Apart

There's some parts of this chapter that bug me, but other parts that I love~ I hope you enjoy.

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Trauma Center

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Operation 4: Ripped Apart

A week had passed without anything eventful. There had been a broken leg, but it was such a simple fracture that Stein barely remembered it the minute he was done. He was bored. He was sure that woman was bored too, if she was still around. He didn't spend much time away from the clinic, so he couldn't be sure.

The last time he had heard any mention of her was when Sid came and told him what happened when he suggested she give him his car. And that was only two days after Black*Star's operation. Soul, that girl's mother, Black*Star--those three so close in a row--but they were all gone now. They had recovered and were back to their daily lives. Sid would still come in and complain about Soul's bad driving, Black*Star's obscene behaviour. Nothing ever changed. It was like the world was stuck, like it had stopped growing.

He needed another operation. He needed that woman to say 'yes'. And then the world could start growing again. His world would finally nudge out of the rut it was stuck in and turn freely.

Did anyone else feel this way? Everyone else looked so content in their worlds that never changed. Doing the same things today that they did yesterday, the day before that, and the days after too; no one else seemed to complain. No one else seemed unsatisfied. They smiled freely.

Nygus seemed happy to mill about the clinic aimlessly. She seemed happy to distribute medicine for the most basic illnesses. Happy doing routine check ups.

Sid seemed happy harping on the same kids all the time. He seemed happy driving around in that beat up car and playing card games at the station with his coworkers.

Why couldn't he feel happy in that same monotone life style the way they did?

He looked at the clock on the wall. He'd been thinking on the same topic for the last hour or two. He hated time. All it was good for was measuring how long you had been doing nothing. No one kept track of how long they were doing something they enjoyed.

How long would it be now…before he could finally get his answer?

*****

"Darn it Black*Star, you'll keep winning all day at this rate," Soul complained, watching his friend sink yet another basket. It wasn't a fair game to begin with, what with Soul leaning on a crutch and besides… "My side is killing me, man!"

"Nice excuse! I just got out of the hospital two days ago and I find you complaining like an old man!" He bounced the ball a couple of times and then threw it at Soul.

"Ah come off it," Soul snarled. "I was in there too, you know? So what if I got out a couple days before you." As he caught the ball with his free hand and tried to ignore the sharp pain that raced through his side. "Man, not cool…"

"What's up?" his friend asked. He had saw the short moment of pain in Soul's face when he caught the ball no matter how quickly he had tried to hide it. "It really hurts a lot does it?"

He nodded, bouncing the ball back in Black*Star's direction. "Ever since we left that restaurant yesterday, shortly after I got home, my side just started to hurt." He lifted up his shirt to take a look. "But there's nothing there."

"You should go see those doctors. Maybe they missed something from the accident. What do they call that…internal bleeding?"

"I don't think they would have missed something like that!" Soul snapped. But maybe they had. "But even if that was the case, why'd it only start hurting last night?"

Black*Star rubbed his chin in deep thought. Soul meant no disrespect to his friend, but the idea of Black*Star in deep thought was either ludicrous, or frightening. After a period of time that was probably longer than Black*Star had ever stopped to think, he finally stated his conclusion. "You ate too much and exploded your stomach!! That must be it!"

"What? Stuff like that only happens in cartoons."

"Do you doubt me?" Black Star jumped on top of a large steel garbage can that was near the court, "the man who will surpass God? Look at me! Do I look like the kind of guy to lead you the wrong way? Your stomach…exploded! There is no doubt in my mind."

Soul dismissed everything he said with a wave of a hand. "You're crazy. But yeah, I'll go see those doctors. It'll bug me if I don't. You know, I had a friend once who ignored his body and refused to see a doctor. He almost died. I'd rather not follow a lame brain example like him. Or I'll end up dead before I see twenty." Soul turned to leave the basketball court.

"WAIT!" Black*Star flung himself off the garbage can, causing it to fall onto the ground with a crash. He ran after his friend. "Was that story referring to me!? Soul! Wait up!!"

"I thought you liked it when people treated you like the main character in their stories!!" Soul called back at him. He faced forward again and winced. The pain was getting worse, and yelling wasn't helping.

He was no medical expert, but was pretty sure that his stomach hadn't 'exploded.' The internal bleeding thing Black Star had mentioned, did worry him a little though. If not from the crash with the truck, then maybe with that street fight he got in shortly after leaving the hospital? He was sure that it was possible for eating lots to maybe…aggravate the internal wound, opening it up.

Well, he wasn't sure. He couldn't be sure. Again, he was no medical expert. It was a guess. So he'd suggest it to those doctors. If they laughed at him and told him that wasn't possible, then he'd certainly feel a little less cool. But it was better than running in and crying out 'Doctor! My stomach exploded!' What kind of nutcase would say that?

Oh wait…

"I finally caught up to you Soul," Black*Star said with a pant as he came up beside Soul. "You sure can move fast for being on crutches. Can't blame you, what with an exploded tummy to look after. I was really hoping I had seen the last of that clinic, but I'll walk with you. Make sure your lunch doesn't start leaking out your side or something."

Soul clutched a hand to his side. "Thanks pal." The two walked towards the clinic.

*****

And that was how he felt about time. He had wasted two hour of his day mulling over the idea of time in his mind. What a dull day. Nygus had watched the clinic last night, so it was his turn today. He wasn't looking forward to it; it was hard enough keeping busy during the day.

What would the night be like? Eventually he'd run out of things to think about. Admittedly he could just sleep. If someone did come in however, he was sure it would look bad if he was snoring up a storm at the main desk.

He took his glasses off to clean them when he heard that familiar jingle of bells. Every time he heard it, his heart jumped a little. He would look up hoping to see a person so wounded or ill that they were barely a person anymore. He never had that joy; Tsubaki with cookies, Rachel and her mom, an old lady with back pains, anything but what he wanted. Even those piercing yellow eyes would have been more exciting than most of what he'd seen that week.

He put his glasses back on and raised his head to see Black*Star and Soul. By the time they had got there, the walking had really put a strain on Soul's quickly vanishing strength. Black*Star was practically dragging his friend by the arm that was swung over his shoulder.

"What happened?" Stein asked, as he got up from the desk, pushing the chair along with him. He helped Black*Star get Soul seated in the chair.

"I don't know!" Black*Star exclaimed. "Yesterday he was fine. And then today, he started saying that his side's been hurting since he ate last night. Tsubaki, him and I all went out for dinner to celebrate us getting better and all." As Black*Star talked, Stein knelt down and quickly checked all of the readily available life signs. His pulse, his breathing, his pupils, it was obvious that he was in a lot of pain.

"I think his stomach exploded!" Black*Star said with a sense of finality.

"Black*Star…you weren't supposed to say that stupid guess in front of an actual doctor. It's just not cool."

"Stop talking, you'll only make yourself worse," Stein said, giving the white haired boy a stern look. He stood up and grabbed the back of the chair. "Let's get you to an exam room. Your condition is slowly getting worse." He felt oddly worked up. He wasn't sure what this kid had, at the moment didn't even care. It was already more exciting than anything else had been that week.

He placed a firm hand on the back of the chair and pushed Soul in it towards the door that separated the clinic. "Take a seat over there." He told Black*Star, who listened.

Normally Soul would have protested being pushed along in an office chair. He probably looked ridiculous. But at the moment, he felt almost too weak to care. He didn't quite get it, but it was all suddenly getting worse and worse. His eyes were even starting to blur.

But he had made it to the hospital. So he felt a bit better because of that.

*****

Once Stein had Soul in the exam room he grabbed the pager. Nygus had gone out for the day. She said she had shopping to do and that she wanted to spend some time with Sid. He sat the pager back down on the table. He didn't need her yet. He wasn't ready to operate; he wasn't even sure what the kid had.

He had to at least get him stable first. Lying him down seemed to steady his breathing. "I'm going to have to do some tests on you," he said, as he hooked him up to the equipment. Soul only nodded. "So it happened after you ate yesterday?"

"That was when…that was when it first started to hurt, yeah. It just keeps getting worse though."

"It could be food poisoning. What did you eat?"

Soul stopped to think for a minute. "I had some shellfish pasta thing. But I eat that all the time there. There's nothing wrong with me and it."

"It could be shellfish poisoning. But you aren't showing too many other symptoms. Does it feel like you have a fever?" Soul shook his head. "And besides, it shouldn't start with the chest pains…"

"It feels like there's something in there ripping me apart!" Soul cried out suddenly.

Stein's eyes widened. Ripping him apart? That would be the fastest way to know. None of this guess work. If he cut him open right here and now he could see what it was. He bit his lip. No, what was he thinking? You weren't supposed to cut someone open and play around inside without knowing what you were going to do. There was an order to do things in, and that wasn't it.

Ripping him apart? The idea sounded so…

"Soul," he said. His voice was an unnatural pitch. "I think I know what's wrong with you." No he didn't. He didn't have a clue. What was he saying? "I'll have to cut you open to treat it…that's okay right?"

"Yes! Just … anything to make this pain stop!" It was getting worse. Soul could hardly think anymore.

Stein grinned. It was good that Soul was blacking out and couldn't see the grin. No one would have said yes to a grin like that.

The doctor grabbed his scalpel. Where would he cut? He didn't know the problem and there were so many choices. "Chest pains…I'll start here."

He placed the blade to Soul's flesh and was about to push down. That was when he caught himself. What was he doing? He threw the scalpel back on the silver dish with the other surgical tools and stumbled backwards.

He hadn't even properly prepared…Soul had only passed out from the pain. At that rate he could have woken up with his gut wide open. That sort of thing was right out of a horror movie.

If he had continued what he was doing, he would have killed Soul Eater Evens. The boy would have been dead.

He looked at his hands; they were shaking with anticipation. He still wanted to do it. Even though he knew the boy would probably die--something in him still wanted to do it. He stumbled into the door and fumbled for the handle. He let himself fall into the door to open it. The pager was in his hand.

He had to call Nygus before he did anything stupid.

*****

"His urine is red," Nygus stated. "Using that fact, and the results from the other tests we took, it's most likely that whatever is in there is in his right kidney."

"Tearing apart his kidney…" It took everything to keep whatever it was that was trying to creep up inside of him at bay.

Nygus gave him a strange look. "What?" He quickly explained that Soul had said it felt like something was trying to rip him apart. "I see. I've never heard of something like that."

"He's probably exaggerating. Either way, we have to take a look inside. We need to know what we're up against."

"Meaning," she began, "you don't know what he has either, even after the tests." It was true; he had no clue. They'd have to cut him open, but at least this time he knew where he was going and he had mind enough to properly prepare.

"Get things ready and I will call that Shibusen nurse." This was it. What better way to test his skills in front of that woman? If he could figure this out while she was watching she had to be impressed. Besides, she was from a facility like Shibusen, maybe she would know something about this.

He had said it was ripping him apart. Ripping. Cutting. Tearing. All things Stein knew how to do well. Never with a person--he had never torn a person apart--He shouldn't have been thinking about that. Not now. '_What happened then, what you did then, is not now. Now, is that boy. Now, is impressing those piercing yellow eyes.__'_

He picked up the phone and pressed the buttons, seven numbers, wait, a four and then pound. He waited for her sugary hello.

"It's time," he said. There was no hiding it, the excitement in his voice.

"Time? Oh it's you. You mean you finally have an operation worth my time to watch? That's good, I was beginning to get bored."

"Before you hang up," She stopped mid motion, "it's in the boy's one kidney. The x-ray showed it…something swimming. He explains it as…ripping him apart. Do you know anything?"

There was no reply for a short while. She must have been thinking it over. "No, I've never heard of something like that. Well then, I think it should be good for you to have a Shibusen nurse there rather than your own daft Nygus, hmm? I'll be there shortly. Don't start without me. I'm curious as to what it could be." She hung up.

Don't start without her? He wanted to start right away. Curious. What was it? Swimming in there; something he'd never seen before, something so exciting. He wanted to see it. Cut him open and see it. He slumped against the door. If he went back in there before that woman got there, he would start without her.

She wanted to see the entire thing too. She was also curious. It wasn't every day he met someone who was willing to prolong a patient's operation, despite how much pain he was in, just because they were curious. He was like that as well, and because of that that he wanted to start right away.

He needed to take his mind off it. He looked across the room as his hand fondled the screw in his head. He turned it.

_Click._

Black*Star had fallen asleep in one of the chairs by the table.

_Click._

Rachel never had made it to the end of the second book.

_Click._

The cookies were indeed something that only an idiot would turn away.

_Click._

Yellow eyes.

_Click._

_Click._

Yellow eyes?

"Snap out of whatever sort of trance you're in," Medusa said suddenly, with a purr. "I'm here now so let's get going."

"Right."

Once last click.

*****

"Ah, you're both here now," the nurse said when Medusa and Stein entered the room. "I've managed to keep his vitals as stable as I could. Things seem to be balancing out a bit, almost like whatever is inside of him has slowed down."

"It's waiting for us," Stein muttered as he grabbed the scalpel from the tray. It was the same one that had been on the tray before, though Nygus would have washed it again. Just seeing it brought back that moment.

It was like a pure ecstasy had taken him over. How he wanted to cut into that flesh--His mask was on. No one could see him smiling like he was. But those yellow eyes…they knew. He knew they knew. Did they know he knew that they knew? Did it even matter? There was no stopping that smile once it took hold.

He placed the blade to Soul's flesh again. This time his hand was much more stable. "Let's begin the operation." He had tried to keep that strange inflection in his voice from coming out. But it had.

"Stein, are you okay?" Nygus asked. There was genuine concern in her voice. He only nodded. "Alright, the x-ray showed a long…something in his kidney. Our objective is to find it and remove it as cleanly as possible."

"A laser would be the best bet," Medusa said. She had her usual, you are inferior to me, tone back to her voice.

"A laser might dissolve it. Wouldn't it be better to remove it with the forceps? Then you can take it back to your Shibusen and get it analyzed."

'_Nygus__…_' Had Stein been paying attention to the girls bickering he may have noticed, but he was busy.

There was nothing more enjoyable. He had cut people open. He had cut frogs open, mice open, pigs open---you name it. But he had always been told what was inside. There was always a diagram to show him what he would see once he got there. Yes, cutting them open--that was enjoyable. But right now, he didn't know. He was going to cut this boy open and see something no diagram had shown him before.

"That's odd." Both of the nurses turned their attention back to Stein when he said that. "There are lacerations all over, but I don't see what's causing them…"

"Let's repair those first to get his vitals up," Nygus suggested. She handed Stein the materials he needed. "They're bleeding pretty badly…"

Fix the wounds in front of you, then worry about the rest. Fix the wounds in front of you., then worry…

"There." Stein wiped his arm across his forehead. He had never sweat during an operation quite like this before. But…he knew it wasn't from stress.

Another wound opened up.

"What?" he heard Nygus gasp from behind him. It was there…it was hiding, but it was there. "It must be inside the kidney."

"Then we'll have to cut it out!" His voice, he barely recognized it. But that was his voice.

Nygus grabbed his arm. "We can use the ultra sound to find it and pin point the location. The last thing we need is you and it working together to turn Soul's kidney into Swiss cheese."

"When you see it on the ultra sound, be sure to stab where you think it'll go. Remember Stein, this isn't like anything else you've cut out before. This moves. If you stab where you saw it, you'll only open up a useless hole. Just another thing to stitch shut." Medusa had flipped back to her honey coated voice. It seemed like an odd time for that voice, but he wasn't paying enough attention to notice.

He liked to stitch things shut. He blinked his eyes tight. Now was not the time to think about things like that. Extra wounds, however fun to stitch, would only burden the operation.

"The ultrasound device is ready," Nygus said, after she switched on the monitor.

Medusa smiled. "Such a marvellous device; Shibusen invented that. This is an older model though. The newer models work much better. Rather than the tiny flashes this one provides, you can get a near perfect stream of the image." He would get to play with toys like that if he made it through this; if he managed to impress those piercing yellow eyes.

When he saw the first image, he didn't move. He felt his eyes widen with joy. That was his enemy. The image flashed on the screen again. It was long and moved with a strange wavering motion. The image wasn't great though, he couldn't make out much more about it.

That was his enemy. He waited for the next flash. His entire body was tense. There it was. He made an incision.

"No good, it moves faster than that," Medusa said sternly. The image flashed across the screen again. He tried again. "You're moving to slow." He was getting frustrated. The image flashed again.

"Stein!" Nygus snapped. "At this rate you're doing more damage than it is." He felt rage building up inside of him. He wanted to try again, but what Nygus said was right.

"At this point, it's safer to remove the kidney and prevent it from spreading to another organ." Removing the kidney, it wasn't as fun as finding that little worm and putting an end to it. But it made more sense.

"I'll take the kidney back to Shibusen," Medusa told them. "This is certainly something new. And I'm sure the people there will gladly take up analyzing it. Stop the threat before it even becomes large."

Nygus continued to stare at the image flickering on and off on the ultra sound. "Where did it come from, this terrible new thing?"

"Hopefully Shibusen will be able to discover that as well. Now, enough of this idle chit-chat. Let's continue."

*****

"His vitals are stabilizing."

Soul lay in the hospital bed. His eyes were shut and his body heaved up and down at a regular rate. He was asleep and completely unaware that one of his kidneys was sitting in the other room. Completely unaware that the doctor that just took it out was fantasizing about tearing it open to find what was inside. Completely unaware that the only thing stopping that doctor from doing so was the honey coated words of a woman with yellow eyes.

"I want to see it."

"Stein?" He didn't reply. She didn't bother to push. His mind was obviously elsewhere. "I wonder what she'll say…you were so out of shape there. It was like your mind was possessed by something. I know you aren't listening to me, so I'm not afraid to say that--I don't think she'll approve."

The sound of heels was heard outside the room. The door opened slowly and Medusa walked in. She had a smile across her face, one that couldn't be read. What was she going to say? Nygus felt strange that she seemed to be more concerned with her answer than Stein at the moment.

"Doctor Franken Stein," Medusa began. There was no honey in her voice. She was stern.

He spun his chair slowly to face her. His eyes were hidden mostly by his hair. He wanted to see it. He wanted to take that kidney in both hands and--

"Welcome to Shibusen." Medusa said quite suddenly. Nygus dropped her clipboard on the floor. Stein raised his head very slowly. "You heard me. You impress me. I've phoned my superiors and already informed them that I was bringing you back with me. I know you won't say no. Doctor Stein…Welcome to Shibusen."

Nygus picked her clipboard up slowly. He had done it. He was leaving. She knew she told him it was alright, but it seemed a little sad. And why hadn't Stein said anything yet. She figured that he would be grateful.

His head stopped when his green-gold eyes met with her piercing stare. "Shibusen…" he said slowly. "Once I'm there…things like this afternoon--they'll become child's play."

"That's right," she agreed. "You're the perfect type of person for us, curious. _Almost to a fault; dangerously curious, just like me._"

He smiled. For the first time it was a smile that might have actually passed as a smile in the minds of others. He had done it. He had made it.

He had impressed those piercing yellow eyes.

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And that was the last part of Chapter One. I hope you enjoyed it. Chapter two will start next week, and we'll finally get to see Shibusen.


	5. Ch2 Op0 Greetings

Trauma Center

Chapter 2: Shibusen

Greetings

Stein sat in the back of his taxi, staring out the window. It had been a week since that final operation at the small clinic. He had stayed to help Nygus convert the clinic to a smaller office, said what goodbyes he needed to, and then waited at his house until the flight Medusa had arranged for him.

And now here he was.

The plane had landed in Death City and he followed the instructions he had been given in sugar sweet words. Shibusen had prepared everything for him. They even paid for the apartment he was heading to. He had never lived in an apartment before, he hoped he could still decorate the place to his liking.

"Tomorrow," he sighed. "I'll finally start taking steps towards my true potential."

*****

Three knocks on his door woke him up the next morning.

"I must not be sleeping well," he muttered. "Normally something like that wouldn't wake me up." He pulled himself out of the chair he had fallen asleep in. He could hardly remember sitting down in that chair, let alone falling asleep in it.

Finally he reached the door and looked out the tiny peep hole. He didn't need to look; he knew what he was going to see, but, just to get himself into the habit, he looked anyway.

Two yellow orbs glared back at him. Just like he knew. He opened the door.

"Good morning, Doctor Stein," she said. "Are you ready for your first day at Shibusen?"

He'd been ready a week ago. "Oh, and just for the record, since I'm sure your curious, all analysis of that boy's kidney has been turned over to me. I know it seems silly, being a nurse and all, but I was there so they thought that was best. Try not to mention it in front of the others, as they are terribly jealous that they don't get to see it." He was terribly jealous too.

"Have you learned anything about it?" he asked. Would he get an answer?

She smiled quickly. "Don't you think you should be getting ready? Your ride only wait's a few minutes and--I doubt you'll want to go to work looking like that. Not on the first day." She did have a point.

"I'll only be a minute or two." He closed the door and set about getting ready. He looked in the mirror. There were bags under his eyes. "I hardly remember falling asleep so I must have been out in seconds…and by the look of me--I would say I haven't slept in days." He put his glasses on. They hid the bags for the most part, something he always found convenient.

What would the rest of Shibusen think of him? It was true he had impressed Nurse Medusa--and it was true that she seemed the kind of person that was hard to impress--yet he still found himself wondering. He didn't look impressive.

"A couple of minutes," he heard the woman coo through the door, "it sure can seem like forever." He got the point and finished getting ready quickly. He opened the door to find Medusa leaning against the wall with an impatient look on her face. It didn't take long for it to melt into a sickening smile.

"Well then, all ready?" she asked. He only nodded. "That's good. Let's go then. Oh and by the way, you'll receive a uniform eventually."

Could he decorate that to his liking as well? "For now just try to dress the part."

Dress the part? She made him sound like a fraud. "Today we'll mostly tour the facility so you can get a feel for the people and the building. It's dull, I'll admit, but it's good for you."

He nodded, not sure what to reply. The rest of the walk to Medusa's car was awkwardly silent. Even the car ride was quiet. It wasn't that he had nothing to say, he was packed with questions for the Shibusen nurse.

Why was a prestigious hospital like Shibusen built in a place called Death City? How long would it be before he could start operating on patients again? What was that inside Soul's Kidney? Did she know yet?…she must have at least seen it. What did it look like? No, it was not like he had nothing to ask at all, more like he had far too much.

"We're here." He looked up. He had been so lost in thought that he had missed the entire trip. He stepped out of the car and for the first time saw his new workplace.

He couldn't have imagined it; it was nothing like the tiny clinic, nothing like the hospital he had worked at fresh out of university, nothing like any hospital he had ever seen. No--Shibusen was its own entity. About the only thing he did imagine right was the sliding doors.

The building was several stories high and spanned a great deal of ground. It's walls were covered with the kind of windows that let you look out, but not in. So far, it might have been what one would expect. But then it got strange. Large red spikes and what could only be described as comical skulls decorated the exterior. Even the large crest on the sign had a skull shape in it. Perhaps this building really was suited for a city called Death City.

"Don't be alarmed," Medusa said quite suddenly. "The Director just has a strange sense of humour. See, you can stop worrying. Even you aren't quite as bizarre looking as this building. A doctor with a bolt in his skull and a hospital with skulls on its walls. You'll fit in fine."

She walked ahead, not concerned if he was following or not. Stein hesitated to move, but eventually started to walk forward as well. There was no use now. He was here. If anything went wrong, he was sure that Nygus would welcome him back at the clinic. Go wrong? Nothing could go wrong.

The inside of the hospital was equally as strange as the outside. It seemed to be a strange mix of modern and Spartan--glass, steel, white washed walls, candles in iron sconces, wooden beams.

The two approached a white marble desk. The woman who was sitting at it looked up from her computer just long enough to acknowledge them and then went back to typing. As she typed she said, "Good morning Miss Gorgon. I see you brought someone along with you today?"

"That's right. This is the one I was telling you about. Doctor Franken Stein," she told the woman at the desk as she dug through her purse for her ID card. "The Director wanted me to give him a tour today."

The woman pushed her glasses up and turned to face them again, this time giving them her full attention. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Doctor. I'm Yumi Azusa. I work the desk here and also keep the hospital's research data under check."

"Unlike your little clinic, our nurses and doctors don't have to run the front desk all the time," Medusa commented with a sneer. "Is the Director in his office?"

"Not at the moment. He said he had something to attend to."

Medusa frowned. "That's too bad. Oh well, it can't be helped." She was about to say more but was cut off by another, far louder, voice.

"Gooood morning!!" A man with shoulder length red hair walked through the front door. He was spinning his ID card around on his finger. "Medusa and Yumi! And--" He gave Stein an odd sort of look.

Azusa went back to her computer, apparently wanting nothing to do with the man who had just entered the lobby. She started typing, pretending not to have heard the greeting at all.

The man stopped looking at Stein and turned his attention to Medusa. "Looking good like always, Gorgon."

"If you're going to use my last name," she snapped, "at least don't say it like an insult."

The man laughed. "So, you brought a pet to work today?" He looked at Stein again. "Name's Spirit Albarn. It's not like Medusa to be toting around a man, so I guess you must be the new doctor, eh? What did she say your name was…?"

"Stein," he replied. It seemed like Spirit was one of those people who was eternally infused with energy.

"Right!" Spirit slammed a fisted hand into his other and grinned like an idiot. "Franken Stein, like that movie. Hey, you even have a screw--though the one in the movie had them in his neck. Are you like…a big fan of that or something?"

"A big fan of what?" Why did he ask that? He didn't care what this man had to say since it was probably going to be stupid.

Spirit only shook his head.

Medusa, trying to change the subject, said, "Albarn is one of the doctors here at Shibusen, even if he hardly looks like it. He's been with Shibusen for a few years now." Her voiced switched over to honey. "I hear the only reason he got a job here was because he was friends with the Director though."

"Hey you witch!" Spirit snapped. "Don't make me sound useless. Anyway, I've got work to do…"

"How's your daughter?" Medusa asked just before Spirit could leave. Stein noticed the man's shoulders sag. It seemed even someone as energetic and upbeat as him had something that could wear him down in seconds.

"Ah, was that a bad thing to ask…I'm sorry. Carry on."

He didn't turn to face the two and left the room without another word. "What was that about?" Stein asked.

"Spirit's little girl has a weak immune system. It seems that she's always getting sick. Any free time that man has he pours it into trying to find ways to help her. She's been at this hospital so many times for everything you can think of."

"Hm. So she always comes to this hospital so he can save her?"

Medusa shook her head. "Spirit never operates on his daughter. I have a child and I couldn't imagine performing an operation on Crona."

For some reason, Stein couldn't understand that concept. A person was a person. Cutting open someone of your own blood? It didn't matter. But then, he didn't have a child. "You look like you don't understand."

He tried to change the subject. "So, he's trying to find a way to stop her from getting sick all the time? Then, is that something that Shibusen does?"

"That's right. Shibusen isn't just about curing people who are already sick. It's about finding ways to stop people from getting sick in the first place. Finding ways to make treatment so simple that everyone can live their lives through to its fullest. You'll understand better when you meet the Director, just what kind of mindset we have here." He wasn't sure what she meant by that, but he figured he would eventually get to find out.

"There's another person I want you to meet for sure. He's the head of the research department. A very talented individual. He's the son of the Director, but don't let that fool you into thinking he only got his job for that reason. At only nineteen years of age, he's already invented at least five remarkable things, be it equipment or vaccines."

A child genius. What had he been doing nineteen? He was still in school. Certainly not in a place like this.

He followed Medusa down the hallways of the large hospital. There were lots of people, and he earned himself a strange look or two along the way. He did his best to ignore it by thinking of other things, like where he would put the stuff he had brought to the hotel. There wasn't as much room as he had had at his house.

*****

The boy clutched both hands to his head and ran his fingers through his black and white hair. It had to be both hands, because even in this moment of failure, he was mindful of such things. He let out a deep moan. His father would kill him. The others would kill him. It had all been going as he planned, and then he noticed it. No matter how hard he tried to think it through, it was impossible.

What a failure he was--a useless, no good failure. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, but in the end only started to sob. He heard the door open behind him. It was time, time for someone else to see what a failure he was. He turned to meet his fate.

"_Perhaps it will be that lug, Spirit. He won't understand…He'd tell me that it's fine. No big deal---ahh he could never understand."_

"Good morning, Kid." Ah, that woman. Medusa Gorgon. Suddenly he felt like he would have preferred to see that idiot Doctor Albarn. In a voice that made him want to vomit she questioned, "What's wrong? You look like you've been crying?"

He did his best to regain his composure. "Nothing." He knew it sounded like a lie. "What brings you here?"

"Just showing the new doctor around."

Kid raised his eyebrows. "Oh, he's here today?" What a terrible first impression he would make. This new doctor would see him for what he was; a failure, a loser, a good for nothing. It took all his courage to look at Stein. "My name is Death the Kid, please just call me Kid. Or Doctor Ki--"

He stopped. His eye twitched. "Y-You're…"

"Hm? I don't think I know you, if that's what you mean."

Kid's eyes narrowed. He had to try to ignore it. Yes, the man was completely asymmetrical, but he couldn't be concerned with that. But that bolt was bigger on one side…and the stitches on his face were only on one side. One side. His eye twitched again. "N-No, I wasn't implying that I knew you at all. Anyway, what are you doing here?"

"I'm just showing him around. You're eye is twitching, what a terribly unpleasant way to greet someone." Medusa knew full well that Kid hated her, something she found altogether amusing.

Stein watched the two with tired eyes. It reassured him a little that Medusa seemed to treat everyone with the same level of disdain. While the two continued exchanging words, words he didn't bother to listen to, he grabbed the paperwork Kid had been staring at when the entered off the desk.

He scanned it over quickly. It was covered with formulas and structures that no other nineteen year old could even hope to understand. Without thinking, he complemented the work, "Amazing…"

Kid turned very suddenly, seeming to altogether forget his banter with Medusa. "Amazing? How can you call that failure of a vaccine amazing!?" He tore the papers from Stein's hands, straightened them on the desk and then held them up and pointed to a spot. "The final structure of it! Don't you see it!?"

Stein nodded. He could see it; what was the boy getting at?

"Ah, you don't understand! There's an extra protein on this side!" He jabbed his finger at the drawing again.

"And?"

Medusa let out a laugh that sounded very similar to the little bells at the clinic. "Oh, dear Kid. When are you going to get over that, hmm?" The boy shot her a look.

"Don't mind him, Stein. He's a brilliant researcher, I'll give him that. But as you can see, geniuses are always a little cracked."

"A failure. Just say it I'm a failure…" He slammed the papers down on the desk, his face quickly softening from it's stern look it had a few moments ago to that of total defeat.

"And that is Doctor Kid," Medusa said. "There really isn't much more to the boy."

Stein gave the young doctor a quick glance. He was bent over the papers sobbing like a three year old over something as small as that? It didn't take him long to decide that Kid was obsessive-compulsive. Even someone who wasn't a doctor could have guessed that after seeing that display. He wondered what would happen if he pointed out that the logo on Kid's uniform was only on one side, or the fact that the white stripes in his hair only went half around his head--maybe another time.

He and Medusa left the room, leaving Kid alone with his own failure. Stein had long since decided that everyone who worked here seemed to have…issues. Perhaps he would fit in. But he wasn't sure he wanted to meet too many more people. Spirit and Kid had been enough.

Where else would she take him? What else would he see? He hoped that he would bring her to that kidney. How he longed to rip it apart and see that tiny squirming bug again. Meet it on a different battleground and get his revenge.

But he knew she wasn't going to do that. She seemed oddly protective over it. He couldn't mention it to the other doctors, and she ignored any question about it. Even that day at the clinic, after they had gotten it out of Soul, he had only held it for a short time before she took it away. And it had been in her possession since.

He stared at the back of her head as they walked. Such a strange woman. He could never read her. It was like she always had a mask on. If he cut away that mask--He shook his head. "_Enough with these thoughts. You'll get your chance to play with such urges eventually. For now, just follow the path that's rolling out in front of you._" Besides, he wasn't sure a blade could cut that mask she wore.

The rest of the tour went without any big event. She had showed him the different operating rooms, a bit more of the research department, the recovery bay, the cafeteria--everything you'd expect to find at a hospital, albeit, decorated a bit off the mark. In the end they looped back to the front desk where Yumi Azusa was still typing away at her computer.

Without looking away from the screen she told Medusa, "The Director returned. He said he was headed to his office."

"Thank you, Azusa. Let's go Stein; it's about time you get to meet the Director." She walked over to an elevator and waited for him to follow before pressing the up button. "I have to stress this, try not to be shocked by the Director's appearance. As you can probably tell from the way this place looks, he tends to dress in a startling matter."

She got on the elevator and pressed the last button which happened to have a skull on it. "Of course I'm talking to a man who looks like you. I suppose being shocked by someone else's appearance is out of the question." She chuckled.

"I guess so," he agreed. She seemed to take some sort of pleasure in pointing out his strange appearance to him. He knew the screw was there. He put it there. It wasn't like someone with a big nose, or a strange birthmark. When you pointed those things out to those people, it bugged them. But they were born that way--they couldn't do much about it. He wasn't born with a screw. He put it there. Why did he put it there?

The elevator stopped and made a musical sound. "Well, we're here."

The doors opened. He thought nothing could be more strange in this hospital, skulls along the walls, red spikes on the outside, doctors with OCD, nurses whose words stung deeper than knives, located in the city named Death, even a son named Death the Kid--he thought he had seen the worst of it. The worst of this deranged place that seemed to be the perfect home for his deranged mind.

But then there was this room. And this man.

The walls were painted a baby blue with swirling clouds across the top. Along the bottom? Twisted and broken crosses. The way it was painted it was like the room was bigger than it was, spanning outward for eternity. Even the clouds were painted with such care that when you turned your head it seemed like they were forever crawling across the walls.

There was no desk. However, there was a skull shaped table set up in the middle of the room with matching chairs in white. Behind that, dead center against the back wall stood a tall mirror, which reflected the room in an eerie sort of way. At first glance you saw the room, at second glance you saw the parking lot, at third glance the room, at fourth glance the city--He stopped looking. It must have been his mind playing tricks. No mirror could do that.

And finally, there was the Director. He stood with his back to the door, a man clad entirely in black cloth. The cloth trailed along the floor behind him. It was then Stein decided that he should get his eyes checked again. It couldn't be true, but the fabric seemed alive itself, swirling around the man.

And if it couldn't get worse, he turned to face the two. His face was a mask and the mask was like everything else in the building, that same comical skull. It showed no emotion and it was impossible to see any hint of the man through the openings for the eyes and nose.

"You must be Stein!" He exclaimed, clapping his two hands together. Enormous hands, or rather gloves. "Welcome to Shibusen!" His voice was over the top. Everything about him was over the top. And yet it seemed like everyone here respected this man. This man who plastered skulls in a hospital built in a city named Death, dressed like the reaper--Shibusen. Maybe it was all a joke…

"Aren't you going to say hello back, Stein?" He looked ridiculous when he tilted his head to one side.

Stein covered his face with his hand, making it look like he was adjusting his glasses. "Uh…sorry, hello." This shouldn't get to him. People were allowed to have the eccentricities. Right? Most people would look at his him and his house and think the same things he was thinking right now. Is this man for real? Is it a joke? "It's a pleasure to meet you, Director."

"Hmmm? You don't seem pleased, Stein." Ah, he was one of those people that used your name as often as he could. Was he trying to be his friend? Personally that annoyed him. "So, Stein, why did you become a doctor?"

Well that took him off guard. "It's okay, you don't have to answer! I'll see it soon enough, Doctor Stein. Do you understand your purpose here at Shibusen?"

What was with all these questions? An interview? No, he already had the job. Didn't he? "It's okay! Okay! You don't have to answer that either! I'll tell you…

"Doctor Stein, here at Shibusen our goal is to cheat death." To cheat death? "It's said that the reaper chooses when people die. So each of us is a reaper, we choose to usurp death and decide for ourselves that no one will die until they have lived their life."

Doctors. True, they were often compared to god, but never had he heard of them being compared to the god of death. "Do you understand, Stein? Shibusen seeks to remove the threat of death from the world."

"Remove the threat of death from the world," Stein repeated.

"It's alright if you don't understand." He didn't sound disappointed. No, his voice was always the same. It was a strange, unearthly sound that couldn't show human emotion if it wanted to. "So, did you meet my adorable son!?"

He had changed the subject. "You mean Death the Kid. Yes."

The Director clapped his hands together again. "Isn't he adorable!? Those stripes on his head are certainly his most charming feature, wouldn't you say?"

Feeling like not answering would prolong the conversation, the new doctor managed to spit out, "Yes. I guess that they are." He was sure the boy would throw a fit if he had heard them say that.

"Alright then, I won't bore you anymore, Stein. Tomorrow we'll have your uniform and ID card for you. Aren't you excited!? It was decided that Medusa will be your nurse! She herself requested it."

"Anything is better than working with that daft Spirit," she said under her breath. "I hope I'll prove to be useful to you, Doctor Stein." She was mocking him again. It seemed to be her favourite activity.

"I hope you'll prove to be useful too." She frowned. There was something refreshing about making her frown like that. "Well then, it was nice meeting you."

"Hmm." Such a strange sound. "I'll see you tomorrow, Stein!" He turned back to the elevator to leave. "Medusa, I'd appreciate it if you stay a bit longer. We can have tea."

Her eyes lowered. "Of course. Stain, just press the one button. That'll take you back to the main floor." He knew how to work an elevator. "I guess you'll need to take a taxi back to your apartment. Or you could wait for me in reception." The last line was dripping with her usual gobs of honey. He only nodded, entered the elevator and pressed the one like he had been told--and already knew. The doors slid closed, shutting out the image of Medusa's yellow eyes staring at him from that unusual room.

Those yellow eyes. And now he would see them every day.

Piercing.

He would be seeing more of the Director too. He started at the button panel and noticed that the Director's name was written on it.

"Shinigami." He laughed a little. "I guess what that woman said is true. A Lot of things do have the most unfortunate names."

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Sorry, no operations this week. Just a nice little transitional chapter. :3


	6. Ch2 Op1 The First Day

Just a quick note for those who haven't played Trauma Center so you can understand what Yumi is going on about--

Asclepius is the greek god of healing and medicine. In the Trauma Center games, it was said that he originated a powerful technique called the Healing Touch, which is basically an advanced form of concentration that makes doctor's preform some crazy miracle operations.

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Trauma Center

Chapter 2: Shibusen

Operation 1: The First Day

Stein stood back and admired his work. He had spent the better part of the morning, while he was waiting for Medusa to pick him up, stitching his curtains shut. He had slept a lot better then the night before, so he had woken up early and was ready to go long before the time that nurse would show up.

He looked at his watch; there probably wasn't enough time to start on the pillowcases.

He heard a knock on his door and went to answer it.

"Good morning," he said when he opened the door.

Medusa nodded and turned without a word. It seemed she wasn't in the mood for exchanging greetings, which didn't matter too much.

"Have you figured anything out yet about that kidney?" She kept on walking. "I guess not." She had been busy showing him around all day, really it wouldn't have made sense if she had.

She opened the door to her car and finally said, "I'll show you my research on that kidney soon." He felt something in him jump. Soon? That was better than never. It wasn't now, but it was better than never.

"You'll just have to be a little more patient. You can do that right?" Yes of course. He was filled with anticipation, but he could do that.

"When we get to the hospital we'll check in at the front desk. I gave Azusa a call before I left this morning and she said the Director left your uniform and ID card there and you'll be receiving a pager as well. In cases of emergency, the hospital might call you." She looked at him in the rear view mirror. "You should probably get a car. But there's enough buses and taxis in Death City to get to Shibusen from your apartment. Which reminds me."

She put on a sugary smile that looked oddly frightening through the rear view mirror Stein was using to watch her talk. "I can't drive you in like this every morning, Stein. Unless you're going to pay for gas."

"I could take you out for dinner," he commented dully as he looked out the window. He shot a glance at the rear view mirror and was amused to see genuine shock on her face. "It was a joke, don't worry."

"You're horrible you know!" Even her voice sounded genuinely embarrassed. After a short moment she regained her composure and continued with her previous conversation, "Yesterday and today can be on the house, but if you expect me to drive you all the time I'll at least want twenty dollars a week." He could do that. The more time he had to talk to her, the better the chance that she might say something about her research.

"That price seems fair." He looked out the window again. Death City wouldn't have seemed like such a strange place if it had a different name. True, the buildings looked a little outdated especially when compared to the city that had been near his hometown, but that look was almost a little charming. Charming, but further alienated the modern mishmash that was Shibusen. Charming, like the shocked face of that no nonsense witch.

The car rolled into the Shibusen parking lot. Somehow the strange building looked a little less shocking this morning. Perhaps it was because the Director and his office had been so outlandish that this felt normal.

As they were crossing the parking lot an ambulance raced past them.

"Hmm, maybe we'll have some interesting work today," Medusa commented. That was all. Stein knew that it must have been normal for an ambulance to pull into a place as big as this, but it felt odd to just keep walking. Had this been the small clinic, he and Nygus would have been the only people there to meet whoever was bringing in the patient. There was a bit more urgency there.

The doors to the hospital slid open in front of them, just like the doors at the supermarket. "Good morning," Azusa said from across the room. "Doctor Stein's things are on the counter there."

Medusa strutted across the room and lifted the uniform off the table. "The washrooms are over there, go get changed." She tossed it at him. Spirit and Kid had been wearing the same uniforms. A light blue colour with a darker blue trim and the hospital's logo embroidered over the heart. The logo which had the same comical skull as it's centerpiece. He held it up and took a closer look at the logo; it really was the most ridiculous thing. That skull, with two angel wings, one on each side, and nine small circles, four on the left--four on the right and one above the skull. The hospital's name was written underneath the skull and a tiny triangle was underneath that. He sighed and left to put the uniform on.

*****

Medusa waited at the desk while Stein got changed. She tapped one of her long black nails on the desk impatiently. "Azusa, any word on that ambulance that just pulled in?"

"Hmm?" Azusa adjusted her glasses and typed a few keys on her keyboard. "The log shows that the patient was shopping with her sister when she started to complain of a terrible headache. That's all that they know so far. They're admitting her into a room."

"A headache? She was brought here for a headache?" Medusa rolled her eyes. "Some people overreact these days."

"That's all they've logged in the system so far, it doesn't mean that it's everything. Now, can you stop that tapping, it's annoying." Medusa stopped. "So, what's up with that doctor you brought here? He's something right out of a horror book. I wanted to ask you yesterday, but I really didn't want to say it to his face." Azusa was always so proper, it made her sick.

Medusa folded her arms in front on herself. "I find him interesting. Besides, he's a skilled doctor. He may not know it, but I think he's capable of some amazing things."

"What, like Asclepius?" It wasn't apparent from her voice, since it never changed, that it was obviously meant as a joke.

The nurse let out a flighty laugh. "The healing touch? No, nothing like that!" She smiled. "But maybe something almost as exciting." Azusa went back to her computer, suddenly uninterested in the topic. Medusa didn't try to start it back up, something like that would have been useless with this woman.

*****

Stein looked in the mirror. It was the first time in a long time that he wore something that wasn't riddled in stitches. It almost seemed improper. He tugged at the sleeves that were only just long enough to hide the stitch around his right arm. A stitch that was much like the stitches on his face, and the screw in his head--he had put them there. He couldn't really remember why he had cut his arm anymore, or his face for that matter. He knew he had been curious about something.

He grabbed the screw in his head and gave it a couple of clicks. His first real day at Shibusen. Somehow, putting on the uniform suddenly made it feel more real. He fixed his glasses and left the washroom.

Medusa had taken to leaning her back against the desk by the time he returned. When she saw him she quickly straightened her body and uncrossed her arms. "All ready I see." She handed him his ID card and pager.

"That ID card is used to sign yourself in and out. It also grants you access to any part of the hospital, so don't lose it." He nodded and took the two items from her. "And the Director insists that we wear these. They look like rather high-tech belts--well I'll admit they look ridiculous. This here is the most important part."

She pointed at something that for the life of him looked like one of those MP3 players that he always saw kids like Soul and Black*Star fiddling with. "Since Shibusen's top priority is advancements in medical research, all of your operations will be recorded. This does just that." She pointed at the headset attached to the small, silver box. "In some cases it can also be used for other people to communicate with you. Well, it's no use explaining that right now. You'll get there eventually." She handed him the belt, which was heavy and a little awkward to hold. But when he clipped it around his waist, he was shocked to find out that it hardly felt like it was there.

"Yo." Medusa and Stein both turned to see the red haired doctor from the day before. What was his name? Right. Spirit, or something. The other doctor threw some files at Stein. "Director Shinigami wants you to take the patient that just came in. Kid's been working on the diagnostic. Says she's got an abnormally high heart rate and blood pressure's not looking so hot either. Or it's looking too hot, whatever. Speaking of looking hot--"

"Don't bother, Albarn." Medusa said coldly.

Spirit shrugged. "Can't blame a guy for trying. I mean, you did abandon me for that new puppy of yours, right? Speaking of that, they're looking at transferring a nurse here from Oceania. Seems like a pretty far place to port a nurse here from, but they say she's really good. And any guy like me can use a good nurse." He grinned. When it seemed like neither Stein nor Medusa got what he was trying to say, he merely waved and walked away.

"Let's just go see the patient and talk to Kid." It confused Stein. That man seemed to imply that Medusa used to be the nurse that worked with him, but he couldn't begin to understand how she would have worked with him. It was dead obvious that she detested him.

*****

"And has your sister been losing weight lately?" Kid asked. So far it had been impossible to get a straight answer from the girl in front of him. Didn't she realize the severity of her sister's condition?

"My sister's always been skinny!" the girl replied with a laugh.

Kid had always found the concept of twins to be pleasing. They could stand side by side in perfect symmetry, sometimes in looks, sometimes in mind, and in the most perfect cases, in both aspects. He didn't want to believe it, but the annoying creature-he could hardly think of it as human like himself-in front of him threatened to destroy all the beauty he saw in twins.

The girl made a suddenly dangerous face. "You're gonna save my sister right?" Was she threatening him now? "You don't wanna know what'll happen if you don't." She pointed a finger at him and made a shooting motion. After that, she burst out again in fits of laughter.

Kid took two steps back. "A-Anyway, can we get back to the part where I ask you questions and you answer them?" She stopped laughing and nodded. She looked right at him, which with her big blue eyes and slightly eerie smile, only managed to unnerve him more. "Let's try again from the beginning, just what happened at the mall?"

"Me and Liz were shopping. I was picking out a new hat!" She pointed to her head. "It's bigger than this one. And pink! She started to complain about a headache."

"Does she get headaches often?"

The girl nodded. "Whenever I make sounds like this," and she proceeded to make a sound that only frightened Kid further. "She complains that that'll give her a headache. And sometimes she says when I laugh she gets a headache." Kid had to commend her. Despite her apparent ability to be distracted by the slightest thing, she was truly trying to think the question through.

"What made you call the hospital this time that was different?"

"The store clerk called the hospital."

"And did you notice anything different?"

"No."

Kid sighed. He heard the sound of clicking heels--one he knew to associate with that nurse Medusa--followed by someone with a shuffling walk. He sighed again, this time with relief. "I'm going to leave the questioning to another doctor and run some tests on your sister."

"What kind of tests? Will they turn her blue?" What? Who would turn her sister blue? He chose to ignore the question.  
"Doctor Stein, was it?" Stein nodded. "This is the patient's sister. I was just about to begin questioning her when you showed up. But I'll leave that to you." He handed him a clip board. "This is about all we talked about so far."

"Headaches, high heart rate and blood pressure. Isn't it possible she's just having an anxiety attack?"

Medusa grabbed the clip board next. "There's a lot of other things it could be as well. I can think of a few different types of tumours that would cause reactions like this."

Kid nodded. "I was going to run some tests on her to start ruling certain things out. But her sister seems to be very smart and may hold some sort of key to figuring out what is wrong."

He made a smug face. This was the perfect way to dump this whacko on the new guy and do something he enjoyed a bit more. "Ah, leaving such an important thing as this to you seems like such a risk. But I have faith."

With that Kid turned and opened the door to her sister's room.

*****

"My name's Patti! And what's yours?" She had only said one thing and Stein already knew he didn't like her. Without giving time for either he or Medusa to answer, she continued, "And that's my sister, Liz!"

"And what happened to your sister?" Medusa asked. She was using the sweet voice. Something that seemed perfect to talk to a child, if it wasn't so obviously poison tipped. "Do you remember?"

Patti put a finger to her chin and tapped it, in deep thought. "Well, I already told that other guy. We were shopping together at the mall. They opened a new store! It's rather exciting!" The look of disapproval from the nurse was enough to make her press forward. Yes, it seemed that look even worked on the thickest of minds. "I was trying on this pink hat. It fit real nice! My sister was complaining about a headache. But I was laughing so--"

"Then what made you call?"

"The store clerk called."

The doctor asked, "So, nothing that happened made you think anything was wrong?" The girl shook her head. "Did the store clerk say anything?"

Patti nodded this time. She quickly changed her grinning face into that of a stern woman. "'Are you okay, miss?' And then Liz said, 'No, I'm really not feeling well. I think my heart is beating faster than it should.' And then the lady called you guys."

"Again," Stein mumbled. "All the signs of a panic attack. Why did they bring her here?"

Patti's eyes darkened. "You guys are gonna make Liz better, right? Like I told that straight nosed doctor from before…" She pointed the gun shaped finger at Stein and pulled the 'trigger.' Just like when she had done that to Kid, she followed it up with a fit of laughter.

"This girl knows nothing. If only--" he stopped. It wasn't best to voice that though. The thought that if you could crack her skull open and pull the information you wanted out of her brain piece by piece, everything would be much easier. A thought best left in his head where he could do his best to get rid of it.

But those yellow eyes always seemed to know. At least, the tone of her voice when she said, "If only?" seemed to imply that she knew.

She only smiled when he didn't answer. She knew. She always seemed to know. Medusa turned her attention back to Patti. "Thank you, you've been very helpful. Why don't you go to the waiting room in the main entrance? There's a nice lady at the front desk that would love to chat with you while you wait."

"Okay!" She ran off down the hallway, spreading her arms out like an airplane, complete with sounds. Poor Azusa. If she knew it was Medusa that sent that thing her way, who knows what she would have done to the nurse to repay the favour.

As if he had been waiting for the tiny blonde to leave, Kid left the patient's room. "She has a Pheochromocytoma. We'll have to remove it. You can handle the operation, right? For some reason my father wants you to handle this." He flipped open the file. "Other than this, she's a healthy young woman, so the operation should go without problems. There's some prep work to be done. I'll leave that to you, Nurse Gorgon. Come with me Doctor, I'll explain the surgery to you."

*****

"Elizabeth Thompson, age twenty. She's suffering from a Pheochromocytoma in the adrenal glands. It's not far enough along that we need to remove the entire gland though. So just concentrate on removing the tumour itself. Her blood pressure and heart rate are still abnormally high, so be careful." He nodded. "Did Doctor Kid go over the procedure?"

Stein nodded. "He said that we'd be using the Powell Procedure, which he also mentioned was created by a doctor here at Shibusen." Would there ever be something called the Stein Procedure? Would he make it that far here? "It seemed simple enough. Cut, drain, cut, cut, cut…" Cut. Cut. Cut.

"No, you don't cut quite that much," she laughed. Laughed? Nygus would have got mad at him, but this woman laughed. "However, you seem to know what you're doing well enough. Let's begin then."

He nodded. There was something about the atmosphere at this hospital that made it easy to concentrate on what he was doing. He still had moments where he had to quell some strange urge to cut something more than what he should when holding the scalpel, but nothing like the last few operations at the clinic.

The first cut. Clean, precise. Even his hand seemed steadier at Shibusen.

"You'll need to use the ultrasound to find it," Medusa guided him. "The one I was telling you about."

She held out a tiny device. "I'll hold this where you need me to. Watch the monitor. You'll be able to see the tumour and your hands once we locate it. That's much better than the guess work you were doing at that clinic." He looked up at the monitor, which was quite obviously another invention of Shibusen. A tiny skull where any other monitor would have a brand name, said as much.

"There it is," Medusa pointed to a black splotch on the ultrasound image. "That's where you'll want to cut to expose the tumour." He nodded. "Remember, next you have to drain the cytoplasm. You'll have to cut it out quickly after that before it reforms." He nodded again. Cut quickly, he was good at that.

He looked at the monitor. It all seemed so much easier with something like that. If he had to face that tiny worm-like organism again, he was sure he could win. "It can't hide with something like this."

"Hide? Are you even talking about the tumour?" He didn't answer and carried on with the procedure. "Good. See this here? These are smaller tumours. Let's remove them with the laser."

She passed him the tiny laser. "This one is far more accurate than that archaic thing I saw at that clinic. But that doesn't mean you can't be careful. Try not to damage the adrenal gland any."

The laser was easy to use. It wasn't long before the smaller tumours were gone. "There. We should be good to stitch her back up," Stein commented as he began to set down the laser.

"Hang on!" He froze. "Let's check the area with the ultrasound one last time."

She moved the ultrasound. "There, there's another one here." A similar black splotch appeared on the monitor. "Remove it the same way as the first."

She handed him the scalpel again with her free hand. "Her heart rate is rising please be careful."

Stein quickly removed the second tumour which, after another scan with the ultrasound, proved to be the last. He sewed the patient shut. His first operation at Shibusen.

Although it had been something new, it wasn't the excitement level he craved, it was a good start. Besides, he didn't think that he'd be able to truly satisfy himself until he saw it again. That tiny worm of a thing that had threatened to shred Soul's kidney to pieces.

He would meet it again. He had a strange nagging that he would. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking.

Medusa's voice broke up his thoughts. "Let's tell that girl downstairs that her sister should be fine." She left the room, and Stein quickly followed. Being alone in an operating room always made him feel a little…

"You know your performance would have been much better if you watched the monitor the entire time. You instinctively looked back and forth from the monitor and the patient. You'll see the same things on the screen, plus the tumour itself." She sighed. "You're a little rough around the edges it seems."

"Gorgon! Stein!" The two stopped. Doctor Albarn was walking down the hallway towards them. "Did your operation go well?" He was talking directly to Stein, so he felt the need to nod.

"That's good. Here's a little secret, my first operation here I totally botched. Kid was with me at the time. He started yelling that the cut I made wasn't good enough and it really threw off my rhythm. Don't worry, the patient still made it through okay…after Kid took over." That's right, Medusa had said that the only reason he was here was because he was a friend of the Director. "That means you're better than me!" He slapped him on the back.

"Please," Medusa said, rolling her eyes. "It was never a mystery who was better between the two of you. Is that all you came to talk to us about?"

"Hey! Meeting you here was pure accident. I was on my way to visit my daughter. Not talk to a grouchy bag like you." He stuck out his tongue at Medusa, and then turned his attention back to Stein. "You want to meet my precious little Maka!? I know you want to. Come on! Whatever the two of you were off to do wasn't important anyway."

"He has to fill out the paperwork for the operation," Medusa hissed. "Are you telling me that that isn't important?"

The red haired doctor laughed. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that Medusa is really good at filling out paperwork. Are you ready?"

"Ready?" Spirit nodded. Ready for what? How could he even hope to answer the question if he didn't even know what was being asked.

"Good, you are!" He held up three fingers. "On the count of three?" He lowered them one at a time and then took off down the hallway.

Stein watched him run. "So that's what he meant. How long before he notices that he's running by himself?"

Medusa turned and starting walking down the hallway again. "Does it matter?" No, not really. But he had to wonder. "Let's go. I don't know what it was like at that backwater clinic, but here we have to document every operation. It's the Director's opinion that sometimes something that seems small and insignificant may actually lead to a medical break through."

He sighed. Paperwork. There was something else Nygus always did for him. Though Spirit made it sound like Medusa used to do that part for him. He wasn't sure that he wanted to leave the same impression that doctor did on her though. So he tucked his hands in his pocket and slouched along behind her. He stopped in front of a door. A door labelled 'Medusa'.

"This is your office?" A nurse that had he own office. It was apparent that she was more than just a nurse to Shibusen.

"Yes, that's my office." It was in there. "It's locked. Don't bother. Which reminds me, you'll have an office too. Eventually." She didn't even stop walking, which meant he didn't have much time to stare at that door, longing to tear it apart and see it again. "The Director still hasn't decided which room to give you. He'll let us know when he has though."

The second they exited the elevator that took them to the first floor they were faced with two round blue eyes. "Well?" Her voice was deadly.

If he said the wrong answer, he was sure she will kill them. Maybe she wouldn't stop with the two of them. Maybe she'd kill everyone in the hospital. In some ways this girl's innocent blue eyes, coupled with that deadly voice, seemed even more frightening then Medusa's yellow daggers.

"Your sister's tumour was removed successfully."

"Sis had a tumour!" For the first time she had concern in her voice. "What…is that? Does it look anything like a dog?" She laughed. So she was still stupid.

Stein rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn't good with dealing with people as it was, but this thing didn't make any sense at all. "The tumour was what was hurting your sister."

She closed her eyes and looked away. "So there really was something wrong with Liz. Doctor?" He watched her face closely. She seemed disappointed. "I couldn't even tell that there was something wrong."

"Hey." She looked up, past Stein. Stein turned to see that same red haired doctor had just got off the elevator behind them. "It's not like you to make a face like that right?"

He pushed past the nurse and doctor and knelt down in front of Patti. "Come on. Cheer up. You're sister's gonna be fine right? She wouldn't want you crying now." Crying? He was mistaken, despite the ability to actually show a sad emotion, she was not crying.

"You're right mister!" She started to laugh. "Thanks mister! Hey, when can I see my sister?"

"Not yet. She's still recovering. But don't worry, it'll be soon enough. Hey! Let's go to the cafeteria together. How does that sound?" She nodded energetically and skipped off with Spirit to one side chatting loudly about the cowboy hat she almost got to buy.

"He's good with children," Stein noted aloud. But then, that doctor did have a daughter of his own. However, Medusa had mentioned having a child too and she didn't seem to step in and help when he was obviously struggling to talk to Patti.

He should have known better than to have that thought, because she always seemed to read his mind. "My child is nothing like that urchin. And Spirit isn't good with children, he's good with girls. Let's go, I have to show you where to fill out the reports on the computer and submit them for review."

"You said that the operations were recorded…why do we have to fill out a report." She laughed and then said nothing else. Which either meant there was no good answer, which was highly plausible given how the Director seemed to be, or she felt like he already knew it. "I guess the actual words of the doctor performing the operation are more valuable than a film."

She stopped in front of a door. "Both are important," she remarked. "This is the place."

*****

Stein threw his apartment keys on the table and slumped onto the couch. It felt comfortable to be able to repeat that habit. His eyes lingered across the room towards the curtains. They did well to shut out the light of the sun setting, even if that made him feel a little more sleepier than he had when he was dropped off. His eyes went from the curtains to the other end of the couch. It could be the next victim. He followed along the couch to his foot that was resting there.

He had forgotten to take his shoes off. It didn't matter too much. It _was_ his couch.

He forgot what he was looking at for a moment. His shoes were his own, so they were already stitched. Next his eyes scrawled over his pant leg. The Shibusen uniform. Yes, that would be his mission for the night. He had felt uncomfortable all day, like he was someone else.

He pulled himself from the couch and changed into something more comfortable. Next he got the needed tools, but then he stopped.

Was he allowed to do this? That boy Kid probably would have sewed another patch onto his uniform if he had been allowed. He looked at the uniform pants hanging across the back of the couch. Maybe he would just start with those. Would they notice? Before he could think about it further, he had already begun. He would just start with the pants. He'd do the shirt another day.

*****

He looked at the uniform now hanging in his closet. He was never good at actually listening to himself. The pants were stitched along both of the outer sides. And that was where he was going to stop. But, the shirt was stitched along most of the seams as well. He should have known it would happen. Perhaps he did.

Something was buzzing. He grabbed the screw on his head and looked around the room slowly. "What is that?"

Click.

"A buzzing?"

Click.

"If it were my imagination, this would have gotten rid of it."

Click.

"The pager," he realized suddenly. He picked it up, keeping his left hand on the screw.

"That doctor Spirit is paging me from the hospital? I wonder what the matter is? I guess I should go." He fumbled the tiny thing in his hand until he found the button that would stop the sound.

He grabbed the uniform he had just hung back in the closet and quickly changed. He would have to take one of the buses or a taxi to get there. After grabbing the keys, he left the small apartment behind and headed towards the hospital.


End file.
